Saturday, November 29, 2008

Time and again...

I seem to be intoxicated, not so much by the Dom Perignon 1953 bubbling in the flute in my hand, but by the three hawt beauties that adorn me. A blonde, a brunette and an Asian- mind you, I have the world's best diversity wrapped around my arms. They are engrossed in conversation, enrapt by my charming description of my latest novella, so much so that they ignore Daniel Craig's lascivious eyes that corner them as he passes by, waving me an envious Hi.

"What's the blonde's name, again?", I ask my memory, slurring, as I survey the pool in which nubile wannabe stars are already flirting with water and the Hollywood whos-who. But I don't really care, because I've found all the answers, I'm in heaven, honobbing with the A-list at this ultra-glamourous Oscars bash at the Sunset Tower Hotel, Hollywood.

I excuse myself from the beauties and stroll to the bar, and as I impatiently wait for my Grand Mojito Martini, I feel a pleasant tap on my shoulder and sense overwhelming beauty in my vicinity. I turn around, and lo and behold!

I'm still beholding, awed, speechless, overwhelmed at God's sexiest creation which currently is within touching distance, frantically trying to capture every bit of her with my two small eyes, which seem to roll over and over, fidgeting between her flowing hair, her expressive eyes and other things. How much can they ogle after all!! But, finally, Scarlet Johansson decides to break the ice, and, we go into slow motion here, I follow her inviting pout transform into luscious lips that create beautiful speech, and soon its my ears who are in for a treat as she voices a sweet......

"Tring Tring"

Jolt, shudder, even more frantic roll of the eyes. The intoxication is gone, but this is a bad hangover. Did I hear that right? and as if to answer,

"Tring Tring" again.

The body's natural reaction to such mishaps is to reach out to press a Green button somewhere. I promptly do that.

"Suuuuuuuuumiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit beta (kid)!!", says a gruff, ruthless voice which has an unmistakeable sense of mischief. Its my Dad. The ears revolt. The eyes frown. The decrepitation of the reverie is now complete.

I push the pillow up and prop my spine against it, mumble a "Hello" and look at my watch. 3:30 am. @%*^&@!

My dad never had a sense of timing. When he dabbled in the stock markets, he bought high and sold low and contributed in his own little way to the Indian stock market's bull run. He disowned me just before I got into IIM, and then promptly had to reown me. He watched cricket games right till the end when India lost and shut the TV prematurely when India pulled off last-gasp wins.

But an international sense of timing is a totally different level. Since I moved to London, I gave the folks a crash course in timing. -4:30 usually, and -5:30 in winter, due to daylight saving. I chose the wrong words. The daylight saving had them very curious, and caused immense confusion. "But, whyyyyy?", crooned my Mom, and the Dad's creativity abolished its boundaries and devoted itself to the creation of hypothetical scenarios, "What if you are catching a flight at 2 am on the 2nd weekend of Nov, if you were 1 hr late would you be on time?" Arrgggh. Give up.

My lifestyle hours have only compounded matters. Even when I was in India, we were time zones apart, they operating 5 am to 9 pm and me doing 9 am to 5 am. The tradeoff of accompanying them for a family function was thus complicated by the jet lag involved. And here, it has only worsened, now that I'm no longer under their strict eye, and so I've often got up at 4 pm on Sundays and called home, only to have had a tough time explaining why I haven't had breakfast when they have just finished dinner!

Anyways, so back to the call, because Mehta Sr. is waiting. We exchange pleasantries. And then comes the time bomb, "Mummy's asking, did you have lunch???!!!" I don't understand my Mom's obsession with my appetite, but of course I find it very sweet. However, a part of me thinks its only her way of finding out the time. Like, "did you have lunch?", "Arre, I had lunch 5 hrs back, its dinner time now", "Aah! thought as much."Clever.

But thankfully, she has better sense than my Dad, because I hear her voice in the background, shouting "He must be sleeping now! How many times have I told you not to get confused between London and Singapore!" If only confusion was a matter of will, but I hope my Dad has a better response. But you see, thats an additional confusion, because my sister lives in S'pore, and having 1 kid at +2:30 hrs and another at -4:30 hrs has had the Mehta Sr. swimming in a pool of confusion 8 hours wide. I don't blame him, honestly.

So he realizes his error, mumbles a few things like, "Oh what time is it?", Me: "3:32 am", Him: "Oh you must be sleeping then?", Me: "YEAH!", Him: "Ah, its not a Saturday, no wonder I got confused, last week you were wide awake this time, even though slurring your words!" @£$&&. One can never win, I shrug, say Goodbye, promise to call back at a more convenient time, hang up and re-engage myself in invoking the divine spirit of Ms. Johansson.

7 comments:

AD said...

Your piece just brought a much-needed smile on my face. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Hey Sam! You make for good reading ... :)

Atticus said...

@Ashwini: happy to help! coincidentally I was chattng witha friend who had written a blog onthe blasts, and by contrast I wrote this and I thought the only purpose of my blog compared to hers was that it would bring a smile to someones face hopefully, and then you said exactly the same thing!

@Mah: helloooo! thanks, pls do keep reading and commenting!

Swap said...

good one....

Atticus said...

hey Swap, you seem to be a newcomer, Hi! thanks for stopping by! will read your blog now...

Anonymous said...

you wasted 4 minutes of my life and I want them back.....

Atticus said...

@Sad smiley: Sorry about that...here are a few ways to get time back:

1. Dont sleep through the next time daylight saving transition occurs. Wrt my dads suggestion above, youll be able to magically gain 1 hr. In fact, 4 minutes spent reading this post is nothing compared to 60 min gained by piggy backing on my dads brilliance! Dont forget to say thanks...

2. As we all know, time is relative. So since my humour doesn't appeal to you, what about sitting through each of my posts? Esp the ones I HAVEN'T marked as My favourites? It would seem to you like hours, but actually you'd have spent only an hour....