Sunday, April 25, 2010

Ghonchu's nephew - Vedu

Ghonchu's two year old nephew, Vedu had come to stay for a few days. Some snippets of his stay.

Scene one :

The moment Ghonchu's sister and Vedu came over, Ghonchu welcomed him with open arms. As Vedu was perched safely in his mother's lap, Ghonchu was ignored. However, when Vedu was eventually transferred to Ghonchu, Vedu opened his mouth to make the first sound of the day - 'aaainnnnnnnnnnnnnn'. Vedu went back to his mother. Ghonchu went back to welcoming Vedu from a distance.

Scene two :

Over a few days, Vedu had now got used to Ghonchu's presence. One afternoon, he was sitting next to Ghonchu, feeling bored. Looking around, he found a new play thing. He smiled, went upto Ghonchu's face. Ghonchu, delighted at this gesture of affection, put his face forward. Snatch, went Ghonchu's spectacles. Alarmed, Ghonchu looked to see what Vedu did next. Vedu looked at the specs thoughtfully wondering in what manner to crush it. Ghonchu now decided to play tug of war with Vedu for the specs. Being (slightly) bigger, Ghonchu won the battle. The next audible sound was 'aaainnnnnnnnnnnnnn'. From the other room, his sister's voice came, "Ghonchu, why are you troubling Vedu?" Back went the specs to Vedu, and all sounds stopped. Ghonchu consoled himself with the thought that he could claim spectacle expenses as part of his company's medical reimbursement policy.

Scene three :

Ghonchu was watching IPL with intensity on television. Also sitting on his stomach was Vedu. Playing horse-horse. Sachin hit a straight drive boundary and Ghonchu exclaimed "ooooohhh" with delight. Vedu jumped on Ghonchu's stomach and Ghonchu again screamed "ooooohhh", this time because he was winded. Ghonchu looked angrily at Vedu who looked delighted with the soft flabby thing he had found. Ghonchu became engrossed in watching the match again and Vedu had to remind him of his presence by jumping again, this time a little lower. Ghonchu lay there unable to speak or move with a look of resignation.

Scene four :

"Ghonchu, I am going out for some work. Take Vedu for a walk in the park," requested Ghonchu's sister.
"Sure", said Ghonchu.
"Make sure he wears a diaper and also take his ball".
"Ok".
Ghonchu began day-dreaming of all the girls in the park who would be impressed on seeing him taking care of Vedu.

In the evening, Ghonchu took Vedu to the park in the evening and set him down on the grass to play with his ball. He himself sat on the bench and looked around to see who all were observing him admiringly. Sadly, the total count was zero. Ghonchu in his quest to look for admirers soon forgot about Vedu.

Soon, however a woman came up to Ghonchu and said, "Hi".
"Hi", replied Ghonchu delighted (He said "bingo" in his mind).
"You don't mind my son playing with your son's ball", she said pointing to where another little boy was now playing with Vedu and his ball.
"Eh!", said Ghonchu blankly.
The woman repeated her statement.
"He is not my son. He is my nephew", Ghonchu managed to stutter with a mortified expression.
"Oh".
"And no, your son can't play with mine because we are leaving now".
"Oh", she said and turned away.
"I meant my nephew", screamed Ghonchu at her back.

Ghonchu looked at Vedu who came up to him and clambered on his lap. Just as Ghonchu got up to leave before other people got the same impression as the woman, he felt something.

That something was something wet on his trousers. He had forgotten to put the diaper on Vedu. With an expression of 'the-worst-has-happened', Ghonchu looked down at Vedu's black shorts which remained of the same dark colour, and at his own white trousers which now looked a pale shade of grey in an area where one wouldn't want it to look grey.
                               A picture of my nephew - Vedant

Ghonchu learns cooking (Part 2)

Now emboldened with the fact that he had learnt the basics of cooking, Ghonchu decided that he should make a supreme dish. Such a dish, that everyone would appreciate and say "Wow! Ghonchu, you are a wonder." After a lot of thought, Ghonchu decided to make Maggi - every bachelor's bread and butter.

The planning complete, like a true software engineer, Ghonchu moved to the implementation of this task. His prior investigations had taught him how to light the gas, so that hurdle could be easily overcome.

Ghonchu lit the gas, took a vessel, filled it with water, put maggi and the masala into it and looked satisfied. "I am a born cook", he thought. "This should be ready to eat in a couple of minutes, as the advertisement claims."

Ghonchu waited for a couple of minutes and looked into the vessel. It looked like the Ganga river with a lot of floating snakes in it. Perplexed and convinced that this isn't how maggi looked like, he decided to wait. After ten more minutes, he put his head over the vessel again. With steam coming out of the vessel, the maggi was fermenting and frothing and dancing like the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

The volcanic steam also succeeded in disrupting the flow of air traffic in Ghonchu's nose (made him sneeze). In a state of panic, Ghonchu switched off the gas and decided to eat the ashes after it cooled down. After ten more minutes of waiting, Ghonchu brought out a plate to transfer the maggi from the vessel. However, he realized that still a lot of water remained in the vessel and hence decided to eat whatever had been prepared in the vessel itself.

Ghonchu dug a spoon into the vessel. All that came out was murky water which slipped back into the vessel. Changing tactics, Ghonchu tried to pour out the Ganga into the sink without disturbing the swimming snakes. All the masala drained out with the Ganges.

Ghonchu now sat back happily and ate the leftover bland sticky remains of what was once known as maggi.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Thanks...

The other day I went to watch the match between Bangalore and Bombay in IPL. There were a couple of low intensity bomb blasts nearby, outside the stadium while I was there along with my friends.

Later on, I came to know about how a few people (whom I wouldn't have expected) had tried calling me up, when they became aware of those incidents. As luck would have it, the networks were jammed and no one was able to reach me apart from my parents. This post is to thank all those people who tried to call me then; it feels nice to be cared for and I really appreciate such a gesture.