(May 5, 11:45am)

[Samaritan, if you're reading this read the lasT few paras too]

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Can you believe this....ACJ dint host dinner for the graduates this time?

People actually went to eat out in groups!!!

And despite last year's ample embarrassment, guests once more outnumbered chairs! But Holmes says Nishat Sir's vote of thanks was a big hit..we understand!

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Okay..lets call him perennial annoyance.. So last night just as i had taken my bath and plugged on the FM, PA calls me to tell he's caught driving without licence...and i have to gulp out some 2k bucks now..

what the hell...here i have no money to pay my bills even..and 2 thousands??

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Im totally, you know what...screwed...may be thats how you call it..Anyway, Rohan bailed him out...i thanked and told him, id return him the trash soon...but he was onto other calculations...

"If you don't have 2k, how about the house...?"

"Just borrowed from A***, the engineer friend in Surat, and paid the rent....and then there's this Samaritan, who told me about the 7000 bucks over my blog..that shall be enuf for other things.."

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Seems he was upset I asked A*** and not him..he made this apparent too...with a child's impulse, actually...

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Anyway, with A's help the rent is cleared...and i rung up Chennai for the 7k too...so, it's like although i'd be broke, it won't be apparent..this month at least..

And so long it's behind the curtains, i guess i wouldn't mind that..unless, of-course, i have a choice..You see, even the Goddess had to live in the demon's garden..

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Okay, so the advice num is actually not come....Mr M never gave mum wrong information..what with me then?

swayed by compassion perhaps..even before he saw it for himself, he called up and said "done"..

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Not done...it still is pending, and who knows this might just take some more time..."some"..ah, i love the word...it's so preferable to "much!"

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Okay..about the "samaritan" now...who's he...if he's the same man who earlier bailed us against the duke's false plans, i must be so ungrateful..

First i didn't even tell him before i left.. and second..i never cared to tell him that the duke has ample false plans against him too...

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Not that i didn't bother, but i guess im habitually more bothered about myself maintaining decorums..for me it's difficult to open up unless there's rightful platform to do so..

And so long i was there, who knows the samaritan could have thought i myself had been scheming..

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But it's time i reflected the magnanimity..
here it goes..

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The duke is tired of dukedom..and aspires to be the king now...and for that he plans to annihilate worthier contenders...the samaritan being one..

So more than being concerned about his own employees, duke takes interest in the samaritan's employees..

And know what, he's found a human-shield...a person who shares the same designation as the samaritan, and with whom duke plans to replace the samaritan..as the h.o.d of-course..

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Duke keeps thinking of ways to malign the samaritan...Last heard when the human-shield (HS) went to the duke asking who's cut his/her *tory..the duke promptly named the samaritan..and before the HS could respond, duke (mal)advised HS to lodge a complaint in Bangalore..

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Even the day when the samaritan fell out with a certain somebody, the duke and the bandit (after the samaritan was gone) went to the "somebody" and kept provoking him...and sympathising with him..and with every move, making sure the rancour intensified..

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The duke is often heard telling others over the phone, he's the *ews *ditor..but that certainly he is not..

May be he hopes to..but spoiling samaritan's chances with characteristic inequity, is not the best way to progress!

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Long live, Samaritan..

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(May 2, 11:01am)

The electricity bills have come...the paper bills too...the cable too..even maintenance...and it's also time i paid the rent..and the servants..

Okay, it's usually the 5th or 6th of the month when payments are done..so i still have few days left..

After it what?

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At least the Gods would know, it was not in abundance alone that i believed them!

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Mr M called yet again..to tell me the advice no. is come...thats the number through which grants are transferred from the uni to the bank..and then payments done...

So?

Is that relief??

Im not gonna believe anything unless i have it for real!
Remember i told you about de-constructive optimism??

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Osama is dead..

I know you know...and im really not the type who post breaking news statuses on FB...for i know others are just as much alive and vigilant..

But i mean, is that good?
That Osama is dead?

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Of-course die he must..but what about the time-tested postulate of checks and balances..America, save our obsession for its universities, is no monk either..Right?

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(April 30, 12:21pm)

It was last year's 30th April...around 5pm i guess....when i went to SKM sir, and talked to him one last time..as the dean...and i his student..

I told him how i have always liked only few people...nobody romantically...although i have admired the presence of elegant men and women...judging them, of-course, on my own scales..and valued them, and desired their attention...and sought their love..

Even blandish..

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People who are suave yet humble..dignified yet affable..ready to accommodate others around them, but not letting their privacy go....Whose bearing reflected in little things, and whose learning came alive in even idle talk....their sense of fashion..their aplomb...and all of it innate... not learned...

How I have loved such people, and desired to get into their good books..I told him about Mary Pascal..how i thought she were Snow White coming out of the books..and few others...

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And then, as though suddenly unbound from my elements of discretion, I told him "I liked you...the last time I liked Ms SR, i was only 12...and who knows the next time i'd be well past 30".."Of-course, there have been others too..but they ain't elders...and i guess you're always more obsessed with people who are older, and may be hence, inaccessible".."leaving you, perhaps, in happy, imagined bonhomie.."

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I guess he liked it..he told me how he himself wasn't gregarious..and how this made him vulnerable to getting misunderstood often..

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He gave me a wonderful piece of writing too..from his treasured collection..and told me, "It was an extra-ordinary experience to have a student like you.."

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We talked really long....for an hour and half or more...before, home beckoned!

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(April 27, 12:17pm)

The file has come back to the accounts...now let us see, how it goes from here..I have given my bank pass-book to Mr M..

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I told the Goddess (not the regular one, the other Goddess), to speed up things..I can't live in want and apprehension..

and you know what..

In barely 30 minutes she responded..I opened the door to find the courier man with a cheque...the Times Group have unsolicitedly, and unexpectedly, reimbursed my travel expenses..

But then, for most of you there it's purely a good timing and nothing more!

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(April 26, 11:32am)

So having got their names from Mr. Holmes, i checked the FB profiles of the girls...obviously, this was curiosity..

How the two lil miss-es from ACJ look..??

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But don't get it wrong...i wasnt lookin' to delight myself with noodle-strap tops or skirts...it's just that i wished to know if they were brawny enuf...like in order to give back amply, rather than just taking..

Remember I told you, they would be joining *angalore desk..??

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Hmm, so one of them is domineeringly parched on the roof of a vehicle, while the other one's is a group photo, where one girl is wearing spaghetti..

Good good..

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Neither of them is going to take their lurid jokes!

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(April 24, 12:03pm)

"...Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating..."

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I have loved the lines, ever since Mr Mathew read them out on a bright February afternoon...in std IXth, in St Xavier's..

I was instantly in love with Jim and Della..

Their love, their quarrels...their remorse, their caprice.. their sense of happiness in little things, all of that had appealed to me and attracted me..

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But who would have thought, someday, one afternoon, I too would be counting my tens and my fiftees...and get delighted at the sight of an unexpected hundred..

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Yesterday, I sneaked into mumma's room and checked the hand-bag..it's the same one which she had taken out on our last outing...on September 4th...when we shopped for her b'de..

She carried a few thousands..and although it was in her nature to shell everything out, 340 rupees had remained..she wanted to eat out, but i thought we were late already..

I took them all...this might be enough for three days or four..and by then, may be i will have got the clearance..lets see..

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People still think im well-off....may be because they have no cut-downs to spot...but all that would be apparent after the end of the month..when i wouldnt have trash to make payments..or clear maintenance bills...

But, wouldn't the Gods have intervened by then and bring me comfort?

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First time i feel happy my readers have chosen to be anonymous..otherwise i'd have the compulsion to be discreet...and that is not how you relieve yourself of stress...

Okay people would be still reading it..but then, i'd not be knowing who all..and so im also not likely to be embarrassed when i come across a likely reader of my post..and then the rules of sham ignorance would be applicable to them too..

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That's nature..like when you close your eyes, you think the cat is gone..your mind might be telling you the truth...but you wouldn't believe that....

We need comfort..and hence we also device ways to get that...deliberate ignorance is one such way, whenever you are at odds..

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Okay Sherlock Holmes tells me two ACJ girls are going to join *angalore desk..God save them...and may good sense prevail on the two perennial suckers...

I just hope they be super-brawny types, who can kick people's butts tightly if required..like when jokes with sexual innuendos are hurled..which are habitual of the two half-wits there..

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(April 23, 10:58am)

Im goin to have an anxious weekend...

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