Nowadays all my time is being eaten up by filling up of innumerable forms application forms for various entrance examinations to different colleges, each form being more eccentric than the previous one in its rules and regulations. In another one of those inevitable trips to the photo studio for another ton of passport-sized photographs, a funny thing happened (if you could call it that...)
As we were behind schedule and running late for my tuition class, my dad had to park on the side of a busy main road. So, he made me sit in the car. I didn't know this, but apparently, if there is a person inside the car, it is considered as 'stopping' and not 'parking' and we don't get a parking ticket. If somebody can figure out the logic behind that rule, please explain it to me sometime.
Anyway, as I sat in the hot-as-an-oven car getting steam boiled and simultaneously and dispiritedly cracking open my English text book, I glanced at the movie poster stuck on the wall next to which the car was parked. I found myself eye-to-eye with the words 'porn mafia'. Underneath it in all too clear words were the words 'blue film'. Then there was the vivid picture of a scantily dressed woman and a man running. Ugh.
Then the next poster. A woman lying on a bed of rose petals, with the petals covering all ah... the essential areas. Ugh again. I screamed silently at my dad for choosing that very place for parking err... stopping the car. Unfortunately the road was extremely busy and every single person walking past would steal a look at the posters and then look straight at me, wondering perhaps what I was doing sitting under B-film posters. It was SO embarrassing! Then came the buses, buses full of pilgrims to Sabarimala (for your info, this is a place where only men are allowed). All of them would stare inevitably at the posters and stare right at me. Oh, would the embarrassment never end?
Apparently not. To my extreme mortification, I ran across my classmate. She is very conservative, and gave one look at the posters and giving me the evil eye, as though being there was my fault in some screwed up way, left the place in a huff.
Wait a second, it didn't end there. A guy from my class turned up next. He talked me, but I saw the way his eyes continuously drifted behind me to the posters and then back at me twinkling mischievously. I knew he was bursting to ask if I was having fun ogling the half-naked guy in the poster. When he finally left, he was grinning widely. There goes my reputation at school...
Apparently the Gods weren't satisfied. Of all the places and of all the times, it had to be then that I had to run into my old Veena teacher. First of all, my relationship with her was strained at best, because of her holding a grudge against me for choosing to go for a dance programme instead of Veena performance. This arose because of a misunderstanding between the two teachers, which ended with programmes being scheduled for the same day... but that's a story for another day. Anyway, she talked to me acceptably, till she saw the posters. Suddenly finding a excuse, she walked away, no doubt with more ill-feeling towards me and my 'outrageous habit' of staying near the posters for getting an eyeful. Grrrrr...
In the next ten minutes, I was found guilty of committing the grievous sin of (apparently) staring continuously at all too realistic pictures of more-naked-than-not people by my neighbour, the man who came to iron our clothes on Monday mornings, the contractor who'd built my house, the newspaper boy, my friend's brother, the lady who collected money for my post-office account every month, the guy who ran a DVD rental store near my house (this one was doubly, make that triply embarrassing... he probably has those films with him), an old neighbour I hadn't seen for over a year and the doctor who was allotted to our family by my dad's office.
What did I ever do to deserve this? Well, there was one person who didn't notice the posters. My dad. As we rushed to the tuition class, he asked me, "What's wrong? You look frazzled..."
As I came in running five minutes late for the class, I was glad the sir didn't ask the reason for my late arrival. What would I have told him?
"Sir, I am late because I spent the past half hour with B-film posters jumping into my eye sight for no fault of mine and getting super-analyzed about it by one conservative classmate, one grinning guy, one angry Veena teacher, one present neighbour, one clothes ironer, one contractor, one newspaper boy, one friend's brother, one post-office lady, one DVD store owner, one old neighbour and one doctor." ???
I think not.
As we were behind schedule and running late for my tuition class, my dad had to park on the side of a busy main road. So, he made me sit in the car. I didn't know this, but apparently, if there is a person inside the car, it is considered as 'stopping' and not 'parking' and we don't get a parking ticket. If somebody can figure out the logic behind that rule, please explain it to me sometime.
Anyway, as I sat in the hot-as-an-oven car getting steam boiled and simultaneously and dispiritedly cracking open my English text book, I glanced at the movie poster stuck on the wall next to which the car was parked. I found myself eye-to-eye with the words 'porn mafia'. Underneath it in all too clear words were the words 'blue film'. Then there was the vivid picture of a scantily dressed woman and a man running. Ugh.
Then the next poster. A woman lying on a bed of rose petals, with the petals covering all ah... the essential areas. Ugh again. I screamed silently at my dad for choosing that very place for parking err... stopping the car. Unfortunately the road was extremely busy and every single person walking past would steal a look at the posters and then look straight at me, wondering perhaps what I was doing sitting under B-film posters. It was SO embarrassing! Then came the buses, buses full of pilgrims to Sabarimala (for your info, this is a place where only men are allowed). All of them would stare inevitably at the posters and stare right at me. Oh, would the embarrassment never end?
Apparently not. To my extreme mortification, I ran across my classmate. She is very conservative, and gave one look at the posters and giving me the evil eye, as though being there was my fault in some screwed up way, left the place in a huff.
Wait a second, it didn't end there. A guy from my class turned up next. He talked me, but I saw the way his eyes continuously drifted behind me to the posters and then back at me twinkling mischievously. I knew he was bursting to ask if I was having fun ogling the half-naked guy in the poster. When he finally left, he was grinning widely. There goes my reputation at school...
Apparently the Gods weren't satisfied. Of all the places and of all the times, it had to be then that I had to run into my old Veena teacher. First of all, my relationship with her was strained at best, because of her holding a grudge against me for choosing to go for a dance programme instead of Veena performance. This arose because of a misunderstanding between the two teachers, which ended with programmes being scheduled for the same day... but that's a story for another day. Anyway, she talked to me acceptably, till she saw the posters. Suddenly finding a excuse, she walked away, no doubt with more ill-feeling towards me and my 'outrageous habit' of staying near the posters for getting an eyeful. Grrrrr...
In the next ten minutes, I was found guilty of committing the grievous sin of (apparently) staring continuously at all too realistic pictures of more-naked-than-not people by my neighbour, the man who came to iron our clothes on Monday mornings, the contractor who'd built my house, the newspaper boy, my friend's brother, the lady who collected money for my post-office account every month, the guy who ran a DVD rental store near my house (this one was doubly, make that triply embarrassing... he probably has those films with him), an old neighbour I hadn't seen for over a year and the doctor who was allotted to our family by my dad's office.
What did I ever do to deserve this? Well, there was one person who didn't notice the posters. My dad. As we rushed to the tuition class, he asked me, "What's wrong? You look frazzled..."
As I came in running five minutes late for the class, I was glad the sir didn't ask the reason for my late arrival. What would I have told him?
"Sir, I am late because I spent the past half hour with B-film posters jumping into my eye sight for no fault of mine and getting super-analyzed about it by one conservative classmate, one grinning guy, one angry Veena teacher, one present neighbour, one clothes ironer, one contractor, one newspaper boy, one friend's brother, one post-office lady, one DVD store owner, one old neighbour and one doctor." ???
I think not.
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