Apo's Trophy Protection

Apo's Trophy Protection

Its very sad to see that the Apo's Trophy Protection Society is shutting it's door's after along run of eighteen year's. Two less than a score, thats the actual score.

The man who started the society, John Richard's, was apparently some kind of rioter, rioting for newspaper's and stuff before he retired unhurt and started a society to take on the responsibility of tracking the misuse and missed use of the Apo's trophy and castigating the offender's. After eighteen year's of meritorious service, he was forced to shut it down because, for one thing, he himself was slowing down and, for another thing, no one seemed to care. He attribute's the "victory" of the closing down to two other person's, Ig Norance and Lazy Ness. It is not known whether these person's were his fellow rioter's.

But I fail to understand what a venerable old chap within hand shaking distance of eighty was doing starting society's to track overhead comma's, when he should have been sitting under tree's and reading book's or writing poem’s and listening to bird's twittering or whatever. Misused apo's trophy's or lack of them should hardly matter to retired rioter's, or, for that matter, to anyone else. Personally speaking, when I retire, I would like sit under tree’s, one tree at a time, of course, and gaze at blank space’s in front of me. But thats neither here nor there.

Still, its somewhat dis-appointing to read.

The Apo's trophy is probably the most abused punctuation mock used in the English language. Many other language’s must have known this would happen and so they decided not to have it as part of their own gramma.

But, coming back to English, I feel its up to us to fight to protect it’s use, misuse and non-use. I shall look for and, in my own small way's, continue to hunt down serial offender's. Maybe I shall form another society myself. I invite suggestion's for a suitable name and style.

-       © Shiva Kumar

SANTRA

SANTRA

Santra is famous fruit of orange family. Citrus parivaar. In the beninging it is little bit raw and also khatta, means sore test. After words, it becomes ripe and meetha, means sweet test and gets orange colour. We don’t know if fruit name came first or colour name came first. But santra is orange and orange is santra. It is sweetish but little bit khattaness is there, but no any parwa. It is very testy and healthfull. And regarding its health, there is one Greek saying: “Citrus, Altius, Fortius”, means if you eat santra, you will become taller and stronger.

In santra there is Vitamin C. Other alphabets of Vitamins may be also there but C is guarantee. But C is not separate, it is ghulled in the inside of orange. C Ghull. Like Jonathan Living Stone.

If Santra was having twin brother, he would be called Bantra and both of them would have been Seattle to Canada by now. Alas! A loss! Anyway. No any tock.

Santra is available in everywhere of Bharat. Nagpur is its centre of availability. Means centre of gravity of santra is Nagpur. But it is available in every state. And also in solid state and even liquid state.

Santra should be made national fruit of our nation. Not banana. Banana is close but it is by itself. Akela. But banana can be runner-up. Then who will be second runner-up? May be Aam, means Mango? No, no, Sirjee, Mango is Kingo of Fruito. Phal ka raja. Like phulka taaja. Anyways. All this we sall shee after words. This is not common or mango topic. Now we are not having waqt for fizool tocks. We are masroof. Busy, too much going through roof.

Through hearsay, santra is available in Bhutan and Sikkim also. Here it is converted into various forms of eatability and drinkability through clever process of druk. Druk no nonsense. Druk good process. Here I am remembering one song “Druk Druk Druk, Hari Baba Druk”. This song is drag on and on.
In Spain, santra, santra only is there everywhere. Country is full of santra. It is having different name of Naranja but same colour and same taste.

And Holland by himself is santra country. Orange country. I am remembering that tourism song promoted by Holland, which the lady is singing to the tonga boy in the tonga going tick tock, leaving his home behind: “Zarra Holland Holland chalo morey saajana, home bhi peeche hai tumhare”.
In Holland there is one House of Orange. And its king is Willem van Oranje. Some unstudied people think that Willem is selling orange through van but this is unright. ‘Willem van Oranje’ means “Willem of Orange”. On the another hand, the Indian man who is selling oranges in mobile van is called Maruti. He is having orange colour Maruti van. This Maruti is selling orange in orange Maruti van. So between two names of orange king and orange salesman there is utter confusion. Don’t utter them.

What not can be made from santra! Joose is. Jam is, which is called Maar-maal-aide. It is like jam, not traffic jam but eating jam, but containing chilka like skin. Orange is having chilka outside it and same chilka is put inside it and that jam is called Maar-maal-aide. Terribly testy and what not.

And lastly but not leastly, Santra Bantra joke is also became! So many. Good laugh and what not.

Santra is having one male sibling and one female sibling, means own brother and own sister. Brother name Nimbu. Some peoples are calling Limbu or Lemon also and he is actually smallish and shortish and not so sweetish. Santra is fun-loving fruit. But Nimbu is half-way fruit. Not sweet dish. Santra is mast. Mast Kalandar. Nimbu is half-mast. Nowadays he is settle in Swedish country in the business of online lemon consolidation called E-Khatta. Sister name is Musambi, she is married in Dispur to famous Ananas trader by name Partho Chattopadhyay aka Chatterjea. Both are leaving happily ever after.

This is short story of santra.

Now, give me santra, I mean, permission. Namaskar.

- Shiv Shivrajpuri

© Shiva Kumar

IPL COMMENTARY WOES

IPL COMMENTARY WOES

In February itself I decided that I will not watch any IPL match. First of all, I became totally confused. The batsman for whom I was putting my whistle went to some other team. Sold like a vegetable. Worse, auctioned like an object in a bazaar. One of those purchasing fellows pinched him to see if he is fresh before handing over his cheque. But when my friend told me how much he (‘he’ means the batsman, not my friend) was sold for, I had to whistle. If they are paying hefty salary like that, little bit of pinching is no problem. Let them pinch little bit more also, I don’t mind.

The other terrible fellow who outed my favourite batsman three times has come to my home team now. How to accept this? My loyalties are hopelessly mixed up. Pointless to watch. Okay, maybe I am making some small allowance for my home team on home ground when I watch on home TV, depending upon winning position. That’s all.

So that day I watched little bit of our fellows batting when they won the match by hook and by crook. Quite interesting, it was.

Even the new commentary set up is interesting but laughable. First thing is that these commentary fellows are sitting in some new kind of structure which they are calling The Dugout. What dugout, I am asking? Is it dug out of any ground or anything? Is it scooped out from tree trunk like dugout canoe? It is looking like BMTC bus shelter with a long bench and a long desk. These talkative fellows are sitting on the bench. Behind their back there is a curvature for protecting them from sunlight or something but actually some advertisements are displayed, making more money for the IPL. Already they have so much money, why they have to make more money behind the commentators’ backs, I don’t know. They must share it with spectators. Dugout! From where they dug it out, I am thinking. And these fellows are looking so uncomfortable with headphones around their ears making calculations on scribbling pads like in a written test and doing field demonstrations that I began to feel sorry for them, but my friend told me that they get handsome amount as talking fees even better than lottery, so no need to feel sorry.

At any given time there are three chaps sitting and chattering away between themselves like a brood of chickens of different nationalities. One fellow is having so much accent that he may be thinking he is Hyundai or something. Is he asking question or giving answer or simply yawning loudly? I cannot make out, sorry. Whenever he speaks his long sentences, afterwards my lower jaw pains. Another fellow is sitting there who is not commentating but cackling away, seemingly in a foreign language. Everything sounds funny to him and he also sounds funny. The third fellow is allowed to speak once in a while. He carries a clipboard in his hand and makes some calculations on it. After lifting his head and shaking it three times, he notes down something. What it is nobody knows. It may even be order for dinner items.

But this commentary business is becoming popular like talk show or stand-up comedy. I am suspecting that they will soon have Indian Commentary League. I think if I practise hard, I may also get in.

I am thinking why there are so many foreigners in our commentary box or Dugout? Are they not getting any commentary work in their own countries, so they are coming here in droves? They are visible everywhere. When there is no match, they are out sampling the city’s wares. That day I was walking in Commercial Street and entered a shop selling air pillow. I bumped into one of them. I recognised him from the TV images. Immediately he drew a rectangle in the air with both hands and referred the bump to the shopkeeper for final decision. The shopkeeper declared me out. Pah! I showed a ‘T’ in appeal, but he overruled me. I turned around and walked out without air pillow.

This is nothing but over-supply of foreign commentators. They are catering to our country or what? Whenever there is any Indian commentator, poor fellow is like cucumber in sandwich. Simply sitting in the middle and not uttering anything. Utter waste, I feel. The other two fellows talk and allow him to mutter three and a half words now and then, apart from ordering dinner for all of them. Unpalatable.

There must be a new rule to restrict foreign commentators to only during bowling power play or strategic time out or something. Don’t you agree?

-          © Shiva Kumar

GOZZER HALLELUJAH!

GOZZER HALLELUJAH

A certain feisty Bengali described it as the toughest recipe ever known to humankind. Who am I, a mere highly talented TamBrahm Bengalurean, to contest this description?

I tried to mafunacture it once. It was not easy. I thought, if I myself find it so tough, imagine the plight of poor old humankind! I concluded that there certainly is something in what feisty Bengalis say.

And now, without further ado, I will discuss how to do this tough geezer called Gozzer Hallelujah.

BASIC COMPONENTS
To serve one individual, you will require:
 ~Three gozzers, grated. If orange, then three orange gozzers. If pink, however, then make it three pink gozzers. No more, no less. Three. Orange or pink, as the case may be.
~ A one-inch piece of ginger, grated
~ One small green chilli, slit and cut into small pieces
~ Two elaichis, unpodded and grounded
~ Four cashew nuts, broken into halves and again broken into quarters to make sixteen pieces in all
~ A quarter litre of cow's milk. If cow's milk is not available, go for the yak tetrapak.
~ Two heated tablespoons of clarified butter. If clarified butter is not available, go for ghee. If ghee is not available, come back to clarified butter.
~ Shakkar, sucre, cheeni. Commonly called Sugar, 100 grams. Sow giram, sow shall you heap.
~ On second thoughts, cut out the grated ginger and green chillies. They seem to have lost their way and wandered into this recipe.

EQUIPMENT AND APPARATII
~ Karahi, kadahi, kadai.  Also known as wok
~ Sauce pan. What mothers-in-law use. Kyonki.
~ Ladle. As the name suggests, this is a ladle.
~ Tablespoons, a couple. Matched or mismatched, doesn't matter. To transport the clarified butter or ghee from storage container to kadahi.
~ Pilates.

TOOLS AND TACKLES
~ Knife for cutting gozzers into two. (Useful info: it is known as Naihu in Japanese)
~ Grater for grating. Good, sarp graters are available at the Greater Kailash Grater Wallah.
~ Tongs. If you don't have one, get one. Tong adaao.
~ Lighter, to light stove. If stove is heavier, use heavier lighter to light.
~ Large stirrer with long handle, to stir. Check to see that it works both ways. Clockwise as well as anti-clockwise.

PRODUCTION PROCESS
~ Set kadahi on stove. Left ear of kadahi should face East corner of kitchen for auspicious pakau.
~ Light light stove or heavy stove, as the case maybe, with lighter.
~ Allow kadahi to get heated. Touch with tip of forefinger to check. If hot, remove finger immediately.
~ Pour clarified butter or ghee into kadahi. Allow to hot up.
~ Drop cashew nuts into hot ghee. When lightly brown, pour into pilate and keep aside.
~ Put kadahi back on to stove. Pour milk into it.
~ Heat milk. When hot, drop grated gozzer into it, gently and without making a splash.
~ Pick up large long handled stirrer.
~ Use Continental Grip to hold stirrer. Left hand on top, right hand below.
~ Stir in anti-clockwise direction, starting from 3 o' clock and working backwards.
~ Stir. Stir. Stir.
~ Drop the sugar into the gozzer-milk mix. Mix.
~ Add browned cashew nuts to gozzer-milk-sugar mix. Mix.
~ And stir. Anti-clockwise. Stirring anti-clockwise will take you back in time. Keep going back till you reach your childhood. Don't go beyond childhood or you may have to start crawling. Bad for the knees.
~ Your hands would have become heavier after all that stirring. The milk would have thickened. The gozzer would have more or less ghulled into the milk.
~ Drop grounded elaichi into gozzer-milk-sugar-cashew mix. Mix well.
~ Stir in clockwise direction to come back to present day.
~ Put off flame when you reach to-day.
~ Allow kadahi to cool.
~ Transfer contents to propah storage vessel.

Test. Taste. Bhoot mazaa!
Thanks be.
Gozzer Hallelujah!

-       © Shiva Kumar, 10 December 2017 

Cucumber Sandwich

Kukri Class

Cuke Samwich

What if we don’t have to eat? Lekin paapi peyt ka sawal hai, as the Seth would have said! We hafta. Hafta? Not once a week, but at least thrice daily.

The other day I was just lounging around with nothing much on my mind, which is how my mind likes it. Uncluttered, khaali. I started thinking of this and that but was not able to hold on to any thought for long. I realized it was because I was hungry. So I decided to fix myself what Dennis would call a “samwich”. A sandwich; it might help the thinking process. I have never been able to think clearly on an empty stomach. Empty mind, yes, but empty stomach, no.

I made a beeline to the fridge and pulled out the container of butter, a small cucumber and the small container of pudina chutney that my wife had made a while ago. Then I picked up the loaf of bread I had picked up the day before from the friendly neighbourhood loafer and proceeded to make what has proven to be one of the most convenient quick fix foods.

Ingredients (Samagri):

> Sandwich bread, sliced, kata hua double roti. For some strange reason, some people call bread “double roti”!

> Butter, Maska – not molten, but unfrozen. Pighla hua. Pagla kahin ka. If frozen, unfreeze.

> Cucumber, kheera. If uncut, cut. Fine slices. Ultra thin. Don’t aks ussenennary questions like an anpadh.

> Pudina Chutney (“cold mint sauce” in Angrezi?).

> Salt, Namak.

> Peppered powder. No, sorry, that should read “powdered pepper”. Pepper that has been to Pisa. Kaali Mirch, pisa hua.

Method (Tareeka):

1. Take two slices of bread, one by one.

2. Apply butter liberally on inner surface* of both slices – zabardast maska lagao.

3. Cut uncut cucumber into ultra thin slices, enough to cover the surface area of one slice of bread.

4. Apply pudina chutney over the cucumber.

5. Place cucumber slices over one buttered slice of bread. 

(NOTE: Don’t much like pudina? Don’t care for a hint of mint or the green tint? Then abandon step 4 and go for the black-on-white treatment, steps 6 and 7, instead.)

6. Sprinkle salt, lightly, over the cucumber.

7. Switch off all fans nearby.

8. Sprinkle pepper, liberally, over the cucumber.

9. Invert second slice over the cucumber.

10. Trim off the edges of the loaves. Use edge trimmer. Don’t use hedge trimmer.

11. Cut diagonally to make two triangular sandwiches.

Procedure (Prakriya):

Hold one triangular sandwich.

Use classic oriental three-finger grip, thumb pushing up bottom slice, fore and middle fingers holding top slice firmly but not pushing down so you don’t crush the slice, the ring finger and little finger pointing stylishly off towards North North East and North East, respectively.

Don’t use the universal five-finger grip. No style.

Don’t even try the peoples’ representative ten-finger grip. You won’t be able to ungrip.

Bite into it (the sandwich, not the thumb).

Relish.

When hunger threatens to tear you asunder

Two slices of bread, one cut of cucumber

Butter ‘em up real good, don’t be the skimper

One slice atop the cuke, the other down under

Salt and pepper, fans off, or face the thunder

Put together a sandwich to remember

*inner surface > the surface that faces up when you hold a slice of bread in your hand horizontally, parallel to the ground

~ Sib Bahut Dur

© Shiva Kumar 

MADHUBAN MERA DHIKA NAACHE RE

MADHUBAN MERA DHIKA NAACHE RE

My Hindi was not always so rusty. It was worse. To begin with, it was non-existent. As I grew up and studied Hindi as my second language in school, the “akshars” started to become barely comprehensible. You see, I studied in a “convent” school and the Hindi taught there was not very complicated. Rudimentary, in fact. “Thora thora”, as the “gora goras” would say. Besides, I hardly had any Hindi speaking friends, so the language remained rather difficult to overcome. Tough. Kathin. Mushkill. Still is.

I became friendlier with Hindi during my school final years, when I started seeing Hindi flicks, as we called films or movies those days. But more than the films, it was the film songs that did the trick. Mushkill became a little more aasaan. But it remained, and still remains, one uphill of a language. Unmasterable. Isko master karna mushkill hee nahin, namumkin hai.

Namumkin! That’s a word whose opposite I learnt from a song where the fellow says it is possible that he may drift or go off at a tangent because he is intoxicated, oiled, and in the grip of a nasha*¹. That particular line was reprised by the tall and angry ‘eng man in another song in another phillum.

Hindi film songs brought to my ears many Hindi and Urdu words I had never heard before. They sounded exotic to my ears!

When I was in college, I had a couple of friends from the Hindi-Urdu belt and one of them was from the heartland. A dear, dear Lucknowi, though his surname sounds Punjabi and reminds me of camphor. He was my go-to guy for anything that felt, smelt, tasted or sounded like Hindi or Urdu. Though I couldn’t tell which was which. For instance, I would go to him and ask him the difference between “guftugoo” and “justujoo” and he would push off to Russell Market in a hurry to get some vital stuff or “bhoot zroory cheese” for the kitchen. On his return, he would come at me with words like “peshkash”, “rawaiyya”, “bewaqoof”, “takalloof” and so on and thoroughly confuse the thunderoons (if I may coin a new term) out of me.

And so it went on.

Until one day, while I was carrying out a rescue act on a particularly recalcitrant differential equation, the door opened and I was greeted by the characteristic bouquet of itr. There, resplendently attired in chikan kurta and pajama, stood my Lucknowi mitr. He wasted no time in button-holing me with a question about a word that was troubling him.

“Ama yaar, is waqt aap masroof toh nahin hain?”

I nodded vaguely and replied, “Pehle aap”.

“One word is troubling me. ‘Dhika’ ka matlab kya hai?”

“Eh?” was my uncomprehending response.

“Deeka” I’d heard, in the popular song by Kishore that starts with “Eena” and “Meena” and has a whole bunch of similar bafflegabby words come tumbling after them in quick succession. But no “dhika”. I was stumped. No clue. For a couple of hours I was scratching around but couldn’t figure it out. When I went home, I decided to ask my sisters, both of whom were far superior to me in Hindi on account of their aggressive nature. But they were flummoxed too.

I went back to my dear friend and asked him where he had heard this ‘dhika’.

“Why, in that song, of course.”

“Which song?”

“That Rafi song ‘Madhuban mera dhika naache re’. Umda gaana.”

I was carrying a rolled newspaper in my striking hand and my first instinct was to strike him three solid blows with it on the back of his head. But as he was already weak in the head, I refrained. As gently as I could, I told him it was not ‘Madhuban mera dhika’ but ‘Madhuban mein Radhika’.

We still laugh about it now, some forty years later, and I still refrain from beaning him with rolled newspapers.

“Tankhwa”. What a dangerous sounding word. To many employed people, it happened at the beginning of every month. A knowledgeable friend, trying to be helpful, told me that “tankhwa” was nothing but an overhead water storage receptacle or reservoir and nothing to worry about, except when there was no water. I had to nod his head thrice. I am told that this word has descended from Akbar’s period.

You see, the whole fault is with these poetic writer chaps and singer fellows. They are allowed lots of liberties to change whatever to whatever else whenever and wherever they feel like.

The other day, I was listening to Mohammad Rafi croon “Let me touch your tender or sensitive (strike off whichever is not applicable) lips”*² and he speaks of sending good ones off badly and it being one of the world’s old habits. I had to listen again before I caught the key words. Send them off? Yes, with my less than poor knowledge of the language, that’s what I thought it meant. Till someone told me otherwise.

Or that other one, where Kishore-da’s son Amit-da talks of someone being some River Mey. Mey? Now from where did that one come? Burma? Why would someone want to be some Burman river? Irrawady, I’ve heard of. Arkavathy too, though it has disappeared. But Mey? No, it may not be. So, what is it? “Tell me you are not the Mey River, I don’t want to live, I want to die.”*³ Quite a powerful line, that.

Have you heard of a surname called Ghabra? No? I have. It is there in a song, where the singer is apparently negating it, along with Sharma. No Sharma, no Ghabra. It’s curtains for the night.*⁴

Then there’s the funny song that says that K. John may walk off but Jiya does not go and Jiya will not if Diya does. Some kind of love triangle, apparently, with poor John (K. John, to be specific, with a rather stylish accent) caught between Jiya and Diya.*⁵ Cheeya. Ain’t no place to be but heya.

And after you’ve already eaten the mango, how can you show it? What a stupid thing to ask, but he does, does the hero. “If you’ve eaten it, show me the mango” he asks. And like a dolt, she tells him to smile first!*⁶

I spent many a sleepless night thinking about these and others like them till realisation dawned on me. The trick is to just sit back. Relax. And unravel the words syllable by syllable. Sooner or later it will all come to you. Like Karan and Arjun. We will have a guftagu over this sometime while I do a justuju. Right? Meanwhile, enjoy the rangaubhu of the songs.

It is a funny language. So is that other one. All funny languages, I tell you.

PS: If you know those 6 songs, please send me a message. But beware the twists. If you don’t, ask me. I will check with that Lucknowi friend and get back.

© Shiva Kumar – A bit of Urdu too on Hindi Diwas, 14^th September 2017

Tuesday Horror Film

Tuesday Horror Film

The proposal was placed before the Residence’s Empowered Committee for Cinematic Expeditions (RECCE) the day before and approved by a 3-1 majority. A horror film was chosen for breaking the 16-year drought. I would have preferred a courtroom drama or a thriller, but a horror flick is good enough, I suppose. We opted for the night show, the better to relish the horror. The intimation was given to me at 8:45, I said yes and we were out of the house by 9:15. My wife preferred to stay at home so she could continue her practice with the kitchen knife.

The mall is a stone’s throw away from my house and we were at the counter picking up our tickets with about thirteen minutes and forty three seconds to spare. I took a look around. Quite a decent sized lobby with a few single sofas placed one behind the other. There was a counter selling some liquid refreshments of the aerated kind, a machine made coffee, and snacks consisting mainly of popcorn in different flavours. But no peanuts. And no “murukkus”, the curled and twisted crunchies. A bit of a disappointment. I like to munch on a murukku during shows but am careful not to crack down on it during courtroom dramas when listening to the dialogues is all that matters. But you can’t crunch on corns that pop. I naturally refused the offer of popcorn.

Anyway, we went inside and found our seats without much difficulty. I sat in the middle, flanked by my two daughters. Slowly, the theatre started to fill up. It stopped when it was about a quarter full. There was a brief lull and then the lights dimmed and the screen came alive with a crackle and a burst.

The first trailer to come on was something by someone who had a long name. The letters rushed at me and stopped just in front of my eyes! I had to rotate my head from left to right to read the name covering the entire width of the screen. GUL and MAR flanking the two ends, with SHANKU in the middle. Reading from left to right, GULSHAN KUMAR. Before I could read the rest of it, it changed. Then they showed someone in such close up that I could almost count the hair on his eyebrows. And the sound was something else. Every syllable cracklingly clear! It plays tricks with you so, swirling around like that!

Sixteen years!

There were some three trailers and one of them was repeated. And then there flashed a message on screen to stand up for the National Anthem. I nodded to myself in agreement. And my daughter, the one on my right, told me that I must stand up NOW. Okay. I stood up. We all stood up. I sang the National Anthem to myself and it sounded good. In the days when I went to movie theatres regularly, the National Anthem was always played at the end of the show.

The movie starts quite quietly, showing a chap in his workshop picking up an eye, a fake one, not a real one of course, and fixing it to the face of a doll and then going out and walking across to his house to scare his daughter and tickle her. Then his wife, the daughter’s mother, joins him and they both tickle her, the daughter. Then the scene changes to morning and they are off to church. After church, they are met by a friend who wonders when his supply of dolls would be delivered. Sort of setting the stage for scariness to appear.

The first scary scene is in the beginning. Later on there are some more. Quite a few, in fact. This house has lots of doors, which creak when you try to open them. There are windows which are all curtained. There are lots of dark corners where you can see “things” if you keep your eyes open. As the film progresses, I try to anticipate the scary scenes. When a corner is being turned, I try looking around it for the lurking scream. At one stage, my daughter, the one on my left, follows the scream with her own authentic version, which is echoed by a group of young men down the line. This is followed by a collective sigh of relief and canned laughter. At the end of another protracted scary scene, the much anticipated scream doesn’t come. Instead, INTERMISSION is flashed on the screen.

My daughter, the one on the left, steps out to the lobby and returns with a huge tub of popcorn popped with cheese. No masala peanuts or murukkus. These theatres must allow murukkus, especially when they screen horror films. Imagine a prolonged moment of tense silence followed by the crack of a murukku being crunched! Good fun, it would be! I had to settle for popcorn.

The movie continues from where it left off, with scary scenes tumbling out one after another. I start munching the popcorn, much as I detest it. There’s no crunch and no one is distracted. From my right, I hear a voice muttering about children going off where they shouldn’t and not being careful and why the idiot adults accompanying them don’t stop them and so on and so forth. The children on the screen, of course, are hardly listening. They don’t even hear the shouts from the audience to them to look behind and see that thing that is it creeping up behind them and take immediate evasive action. As the closing credits roll, the crowd filters out. We stand up and watch the screen, looking for interesting titles and names. We are the last to leave.

Dolls are a good theme around which to build horror stories. The scope is quite large.

We descend gingerly to the basement parking lot and I am thinking that sixteen years is quite a record! Quite an outing this was!

We got into the car, locked the doors and closed all windows. I started the engine, paid the parking charges to the doll seated behind the counter at the gate and sped homewards without looking back.

As I turned into the main road leading to the street where I live, I suddenly saw an old man clad in tattered clothes standing right in the middle of the road, with what looked like a largish doll on his shoulder, legs twined around his neck and hands clutching his head. The doll’s lips were pursed, as if it was whistling a jolly tune. I stood on the brake, but could not stop the car. The old man just stood there looking at me through sightless eyes without budging. The doll too was watching unblinkingly. It was hopeless. As the car was about to hit him I braced for the impact, but none came. The car just went through him! I looked in the rear view mirror but there was nothing there! I flew on without stopping to find out.

As we reached home, we saw another eerie sight. The gate was opening by itself! Not wanting to stop, I entered the driveway in a smooth movement and parked my car. The gate closed behind us and I could see what appeared to be the face of a doll peeping out at us from around the closing gate. It, the face, not the gate, disappeared before I could go and thank it properly for the kind courtesy. The main door opened with a creak and we quickly got inside the house. I locked the door securely.

Apart from these rather unexpected, unusual and unnerving incidents, nothing untoward happened.

My wife was just putting away the kitchen knife as we entered. Feeling a bit peckish after all the action, I asked her if there was anything left at home to eat. And guess what she replied?

“Rice and doll”.

©Shiva Kumar 23 August 2017