Skip to main content

Kinshuk... help...Help ...help.

The need to call for help from Kinshuk does sound strange but I feel he is there to help all those who need it. See not the disallowed (banned or branded for Kinshuk) such was the advice given to most of my students. If there was a mouse hiding somewhere in the house, all that was needed was to call Kinshuk. The mouse could never get easy entry into my house and if it did, Kinshuk would chase it away in a bizarre manner. Many a time I have told my students who came home (for tuitions, yaar), to bear with my ire and exasperation on noticing a mouse.There goes a shrill call to Kinshuk and he rushes to help me find the mouse and chase it away. I hate traps as my heart misses a beat to see a trapped rat. Poison (venomous potion) is not the right way to ensnare a mouse but I am fond of 'Poison' (a pleasant perfume).

Well, the highly enterprising Kinshuk 'not exactly a pied piper', but keeps whistling till he holds the mouse by the tail, then humming his favourite song, he flings the mouse into the bushes often guarded by cats. Kinshuk was a bad student and so was thrown out of school for bad performance at studies. Later I heard that after being dropped out of school, he had left for a sanitising break to his grandparents' home in Ahmedabad. There he continued with his weird hobby. Fortunately he was noticed by a microbiologist who runs a laboratory for marsupial creatures...One can call it a sanatorium for marsupials. Today he is the assistant director for a gang of rat hunters.After all he was not a wimp.


Odd professions do attract my attention. Met a Sird (sardarji) recently as he needed an assistant. His agency specialises in verifying the veracity of CVs. Of course, not to forget mentioning  having read an article/column on corporate culture by a light-hearted columnist.....how 'light' can culture be? Well the Sardarji is doing a painstaking job with about a handful of investigators and analysts to verify every CV forwarded by employers who pay him a fixed rate for the job. The client (employer) can be as tall as the Tatas or a small container-manufacturer in  a remote town. I don't find this job very different from the man who walks stealthily in parks of Mumbai with set of tools in a leather pouch to clean up ears and rid them of vintage wax. So, if you find somebody doing odd jobs to earn a living, raise a hat if not propose a toast.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dividing line that blurs and shines

A thin line that surfaces between ‘inevitability’ and ‘death’ is sometimes bright and visible to the pragmatic or brave. But one cannot justify it by sounding logical. It does give a jerk to the senses but somehow the emotional binding keeps tugging at the conscience. Yet that fluke decision is quick and necessary. We nowadays call it ‘passive’ death that permits the body cells to die a natural death. If imposed on oneself it is called suicide –Not a brave act though. A few such cases of ‘passive ‘deaths were witnessed by me does call for a debate from both the medical side and the layman’s. Views on life differ. Life’s ‘inevitable’ connect with death is mysterious . A recent news item when parents opined, almost implored to the authorities to allow ‘passive’ death for their eight month old baby who suffers from a liver disorder almost incurable. Not so long ago the natural death of a nurse who unfortunately was brutally raped, fell into a coma for almost two decades or more ma...

Short and sweaty visit to a beautiful city , a passing image!

Bengaluru or Bangalore is no longer a city one longs to visit for the simple reason it can hardly qualify to be a Garden City. A ‘concrete’ city that is just booming the mortar business and also the daily wager’s fortune but drawing the Bangalorean to an unforeseen doom. Of what avail! It has squashed all the meticulous planning a city needs to preserve its past history. Even the city’s scientist who has left us, Mr C V Raman, who owns a piece of land there which is being hawked upon by the government. Electric supply, is erratic and water ‘supply’ is stolen (via tankers) and supplied, Lakes keep frothing when elections are not due, Vehicular traffic is infested with App-based taxes during peak hours. Eateries are doing good business except the menu has shifted from 'Bisi-bele bath' (rice delicacy) to Biryani . Lost city A ‘lost’ city where human interaction has virtually come to a halt. Is it because of the IT industry spreading its silent shadow over people, inf...

Five years with the Sharmas! Too long!

Almost two decades in this capital city have been eventful, taxing, tearful and adventurous. They have been learning years to meet and understand people, young and adults, bureaucrats and friends. The one distinct change anyone would notice is the change in personality. One can attribute it to the hostile climate here as experienced by a Mumbaikar. It just brings about a cultural change in the gait and mannerisms. I have evolved as a loud, aggressive and lazier person. ‘Lazy’, because the extreme climate makes so. Summer or winter, there is ample scope to sit in one spot for hours, especially during winters. A virtual ‘no-no’, to shift our butts from one chair to another. Thankfully that has not made me a bulky woman. Over to a lighter moment. Sharmas of ‘F’ Block We were residing at Lajpat Nagar. He, Mr.Sharma, wore a monkey cap (in winter), smoked beedis constantly, was pot-bellied, walked in slow pace, and scoured vessels in the kitchen/fridge when his wife is out. Techni...