Orderly Disorder

Our taxi driver was furiously burning rubber on asphalt in his endeavour to drop us in time for us to reach the airport and board the last flight to Bombay. It also seemed that he was fighting a loosing battle. Our taxi was right in the middle of a cacophonous multitude of Delhi’s irate drivers on the newly constructed flyover at IIT and by now even he was edgy and blew his horn more obstreperously than his usual. The traffic not having moved for a few minutes, he took upon himself to locate the root cause of this unplanned halt and the resultant time for clearing the same. The momentary opening of the driver seat door brought in a wave of cold windy draft sending an instant shudder to all us passengers, none of who were particularly enjoying the Delhi winter or the disorderly traffic discipline of the capital. He arrived a few minutes later with a blank look on his face, opening the door once again for us to repeat our shudder and then deposited himself snugly to restart his loosing...

I never realized that my maiden solo sojourn would spark off a spate of justifications I would have to make to both my family and friends. Having had spoken to my wife, I thought I had rested any emanating objections. But this was not to be so. After dinner, two days before my trip, I dropped into my parent’s room to post them on my solo holiday. Happy noticing an unusual from the routine gesture of me dropping by for a chat, Karisma Kapoor nee Kapur and her Karishma were banished to a muted existence for the while. Like an actor waiting backstage for a cue for his entry on stage, I waited for a commercial to interrupt Karisma Kapoors small screen prowess. Preempting one, I quickly cleared my throat and announced, " I am going for a couple of days to Goa". Realising that this sounded like one of my regular information to them of my usual business tours – I then added for attracting the right attention. "Alone. I am going alone for a holiday without Sarika". In ...