Busy Bee

It was yet another wait at the subregistrar’s office to get an official property related document. Universal Teacher: Experience, had taught me to equip myself with a book and adequate water supply on such visits to make the wait less painful. It was one of those less blessed offices which comprised merely of a single large room with half a dozen tables and chairs distributed unevenly. A few chairs, ‘waiting chairs’ as I call them were lined at one end of the room as a courteous gesture from the government for frequent visitors like me. I was asked by the clerk to wait as usual and I perched on one of the waiting chairs. As I opened a P.G.Wodehouse , I happened to notice a lady clerk at one of the tables . Something about the lady struck very odd to me. She was very visibly jobless and kept staring at empty space with a perpetual lazy smile on her face. The stare with the lazy smile continued for a very long time .I wondered if it was her joblessness that struck me unusual. A very frank mental dialogue told me that I have been equally jobless on many days in my own office. It then suddenly flashed: Unlike me, the lady was extremely frank about her joblessness. The poor lady did not have internet. Worse, she did not even have a computer!

These computers might have given us dry eyes, crick in the neck and a dozen other ergonomics related problems but we ought to acknowledge its long service in helping the ‘corporates’ appear extremely busy in their pretentious cubicles. The complicated looking excel sheets which act as an excellent background against minimized online newspaper windows. Office intranet messenger with a ready source of vital information about the company and its employees (read gossip).The office mail which makes you look important even when you are actually reading the stale joke forwards. And the ever helpful Desktop cluttered with a zillion files which gives you an air of importance when you stare fixedly at it scratching your chin.

I decided to acknowledge the service of my desktop through this blog and as I was concluding it ,a colleague from the next cubicle pinged on office messenger ,“ Busy Bee .Aaj kal bahuth kaam karti hain. Which Project?”.

Star Struck *

I would always cast a condescending look at media reports describing Fans mobbing movie stars or cricket stars. I wondered how one could get so enamored by after all a movie star. “I could never ever do that”, I once declared to my sister. She then gently reminded me, “ Dint you once bunk your zoology class and rush to see Purab the VJ who was visiting your college for the pop star hunt ?”. I promptly replied that I was just 16 then and was very much licensed to have those star crushes. Besides, Purab was cute and my biggest crush ever. I avowed that I have grown up since then and can never be influenced by the presence of a movie star or cricket star or any star for that matter.

Last Sunday as I was walking with my shopping booty on Brigade Road , I saw a huge crowd cheering. Either sides of the street was packed with animated people talking excitedly. On inquiring we got to know that people had gathered there to see Shah Rukh Khan, the King Khan of Bollywood. “ Oooh Shah Rukh “, I squealed. “ Where Where ?” I jumped. I was disappointed to see nothing but mobile phone cameras clicking away. The crowd cheered as I stood on my toes to get a better view. Some adventurous men had even climbed the street light poles to get a glimpse of the star.“ I can see his hand“, I screamed. “Where?” chorused the crowd around me. But the hand had disappeared in a second. I was soon wondering what I would do if I suddenly bump into Shahrukh. Maybe yell with joy as how much I loved him. Deciding that it would be commonplace I thought of an intelligent but yet acknowledging smile. Yes, that would make Shahrukh remember me for the rest of his life, I concluded. My reverie was soon broken by the garish voice of a policeman yelling on public addressing system. He was yelling saying, “ Yaaru Sharukh Geerukh bandilla , nadiri , footpath block maadbedi” ( No Shah Rukh Khan is here. Don’t crowd the footpath).

The crowd was disheartened. So was I. As I walked away, I was soon restored to my normal self. Where did all the resolution to not go crazy over stars go? What happened to all the claim to maturity? Perhaps along with a strong tendency to emulate movies or the complete readiness to wait and of course fight in long queues for movie/cricket match tickets, we also have another trait impregnated in our DNAs: We Worship Stars. Deny it or not, we do.