Laterally Confused

“Please don’t laugh when I ask you a question… I am genuinely confused!” I said to Y over the phone.

“What is it?”

“You promise, you won’t laugh?” I said, trying to take a long breath to relax…

“Yes I promise”

Could already feel him smiling at the other end…

“Err… If I am standing facing the clock in my room, which side is my left?”

“Huh?”

“I said if I am standing facing the clock in my room, which side is my left?” I said shifting my phone to the other side and feeling more and more embarrassed by the minute…

“You don’t know?”

I could feel his grin now.

“Of course I know! It’s just that suddenly, while putting on my contacts, I have forgotten which is left and which is right. You know I know.”

“Ok… (I could hear him desperately trying to stifle a laugh) the side on your window is right… you want to know which side is your left now?”

“Very funny! Thanks and bye!”

This conversation that happened today morning has been upgraded easily to one of the most embarrassing moments of my life… Am I losing my memory? Gosh!

Home Sweet Home

Yipppeeeeee!
Finally, going home after a year. Although parents are currently staying in another city 3 hours away, Bhopal will always be my home. Few things on the agenda:
1. Check if Aunty (they make one in a million like her- in extreme hurry!) still wears those hideous nightgowns all throughout the day and has the latest gossip on current love affairs to potato prices
2. If Panchmari is still as beautiful as it was when I went camping from school. Maybe, this time I can afford to stay at a nice hotel instead of that makeshift camp between mosquitoes, smell of faint cow dung and coconut oil smell lingering from the hair of my classmate sleeping a few inches away.
3. Does Pradeep uncle (I was always confused, whether pradeep was his name or his son’s name) still run the library at 10 no market? I used to borrow M&B novels on the sly when I was 15 as they were forbidden by Ma (how I wasted my pocket money giving rent on Nagraj/Dhurv/ Doga comics and later M&B).
4. Eat piping hot Jalebis from Chappan Bhog at 7 am in the morning with Poha. Only people living in MP can understand the sweet joys of eating hot Jalebis after every mouthful of Poha.
5. Do teenage school girls and boys still roam around the small lake near the hotel management institute in a strange form of immature mating dance? The nervous smiles, eye locks, swishing bikes and Kinetic Hondas, girls preening like peacocks in their best evening clothes and boys showing off with a dummy guitar on the back (come to think of it now, I doubt if that time Bhopal even had a decent guitar teaching institute).
6. If R eventually got married? Or rather where is he? He never kept in touch once I left for Mumbai, I took so many rides sitting behind, on his bike (left brakes deliberately put included).
7. If A has become a father? How strange life is… at one time I used to wait to just catch a glimpse of him and now, not even one string in my heart will flutter even if he vows to spend an eternity with me.
More than anything else, I can’t wait to see if home still feels like home…