Gues who??

He has an obsessive-compulsive need to count anything and everything; near or far, few or many, digital or analogue, gulps or burps, dogs or cows. His counting is rarely mathematically correct and often is not in the same order as I have been taught over my better years. Sometimes, he counts couple of moons and at other times, he restricts the number of stars to three, all in the same night. He shows promise of fast thinking but is unable to coordinate his other senses or is simply too arrogant to bother; as a result, he often skips number "4" and sometimes an entire sequence of half a dozen jealous numbers.


He shows glimpses of structured and organized thinking by referring to his growing list of newfound acquaintances by alphabets like A,P etc. He is yet to exhaust the full potential of twenty-six alphabets for lack of socializing. Limited personal hygeine is surely one factor but he is getting there by an abundant abuse of charm.


He likes to communicate by gestures and an overdose of a variety of frowns signifying all the points on the continumm ranging from ecstatic approval to violent disagreement. When others fail to comprehend his language, he is reasonably patient, drops the frowns and proceeds to explain it in a step-by-step alogorithm using only gestures. When that doesnt work, he gives up as signified by a loud and exasperated wail which always seems to work. Still, he limits its use only for exceptionally idiot folks.


His daily routine starts with giving a wake-up call to me. This is the most effective wake-up call I have ever received. Consisting of just two syllables, it is persistent and simply cannot be snoozed away. Rest of his day is passionately and playfully devoted to making sense out of this chaos that is the world. Sometimes, you can almost sense the brooding, infectious in its ways. Sometimes, you can positively hear the amused spirit.

In all his adventures, he is highly self-motivated and claps impartially for all his achievements, mostly trifling but sometimes downright outrageous. While he expects others to clap with him but he is willing to excuse their inability to comprehend the magnitude of the task.

Such are his ways...

Acquaintances

Off late, I have been adding more acquaintances to my repertoire than friends. It is probably as much a sign of ageing as a general laziness in investing time and effort to get to know the other person. It, however, beings into existence some interesting problems that I havent encountered before.

The first and foremost is the problem of names. Acquaintances, in my case, probably are a hundred to one friend. Even allowing for the fact that I dont have many friends, my acquaintances are still running into a number higher than my mind is capable of processing. Consider a person that I have 'known' to exist for over an year now. I bump into him every other month. When I was introduced to this person, I didnt know that I would be bumping into him again and again and therehow my mind classified his credentials (including his name) as inessentials. So, I promptly forgot his name and even his face. The second time I bumped into him, I offered my name alongwith my handshake and he politely reverted in kind but not before reminding me that we had met before. Now, I am not one to be embarassed easily with such social ineptness since I have developed quite a thick skin from similar (and worse) cases which have happened over time, so I conveniently forgot his name again. Ever since then, everytime I have met him, I exchange pleasantries as if we have known each other for ages. But, I still dont know his name. Sounds familiar?

That brings me to the second problem. To avoid being embarassed again, I take care not to land in a situation that necessitates mentioning his name. This, among other things, include being aggressive and overly enthusiastic in greeting him and keeping the conversation short and flimsy. But then therein lies the problem - how, on earth, am I supposed to get to know him better? Have I just lost a great friend because I cant unshackle myself from the social courtesies?

The problem magnifies when I unknowingly gatecrash into his birthday party. I saw him, he saw me and all I could think of was "Oh No, not again." Here is how the conversation went:

Myself: "Hey, fancy meeting you here!"
Him: "I wonder where I would be if not at my own birthday party!"
Myself (Recovering quickly): "Oh wow, happy birthday, mate. Did it even cross your mind to invite me?"
Him: "I wanted to but then I forgot your name."
Myself: "Haha. You funny bastard."

And then I ate his cake, danced with his girls and took off.

Am I telling your story too?