A bit about cold

Out of all the weapons that I carry, "common cold" is the most lethal. The secretions involved do little to keep it a secret. A rather nosey breed of acquaintances runs away when my nose decides to unleash terror.

Cold announces its arrival with a groin-like itch in the throat. Groin like because you cannot put your hand in there and scratch. If you are a male conversing with a female on the phone, she will consider your hoarse voice as a lame attempt at seduction. Unable to take your own abused voice, the ear gives up and starts bugging too. A Pharmacist cousin had offered a way out of this ear and throat issue. He advised to frequently swallow nothing. "Din bhar apni thookki gitak", he said. Lozenges come in really handy as their chemicals make stinging love to your throat. As a kid, I used to like Vicks a lot. Now kids have become sweeter and lozenges have become spicier. A thankful child calls me "Feeki jeans aur teekhi toffee waale bhaiyya".

After throat and ear come the killer blows from the nose. Like a batsman desperate to reach the other end, my nose never stops running. I do not remember wetting a bed (recently) but my wet handkerchieves could very well overcompensate for that. If there's one body part that can take a lot of crap, except you-know-what, it would definitely be the nose. When things got really bad at school, my co-learners used to find their shirts drenched.

Sneezing is tremendous fun to observe. Like DNA, everybody gives out a different shout before the actual act of sneezing. Like "aaak" or "hyaaa" or "eee".

I am an average table tennis player but nobody accepts my challenge when I have a runny nose. A shrewd strategist that i am, I play the softest of shots with the fiercest of body swings. The competitor waters down with shame and phlegm. Cold is useful if you have to while time waiting in queues - particularly for interviews. You can get over your nervousness by conducting a finger test to check out the stickiness of that stuff inside your nose. Some competition would be out of your way just by looking at your dedication. Before the interview, shake hands with your would-be boss with the same hand and she/he will get a hint of how well you want to stick to the organization. It's all a part of body language.

With all these amazing attributes, one wonders if it still ought to be called a "common cold". Also, I dug deep into literature to find out that "naak" is nothing but a lazy derivation of "khatarnaak".

A lazybones’s letter to his parents

Dear parents,

You know how you mean the world to me. But there are a few alarming issues at hand that need to be discussed. Now that I have woken up [from my sleep and in an ideological sense], I think it would be in our mutual interest that you read this letter. Please don’t read it out aloud in my presence in front of the relatives. I have had enough experience of this kind of public hearing of my examination papers in the school.

1. Please don’t wake me up. I know how much you are concerned about my future and hence, want me to attend classes. But what’s the use? If you don’t allow me to sleep at home, I will sleep in the classes.

Also, it hurts me when you shout, “Shantibai is here. Wake up and take away your mattress.” Compared to that, a kick on my butt is relatively sweet. Do I really have to wake up because Shantibai has to clean the floor?

2. At times, I just don’t want to eat. The food is excellent. The ambience is perfect. The aroma is tempting. The coaxing is cute. But I don’t want to eat. I am evolving. Just give me time to hunt down my own roti-sabzi.

3. When you see a whole lot of stuff lying around in my room, don’t yell at me. It is there for a purpose. Soon, I will come up with the purpose but believe me, there is one. Apart from aesthetics, the whole point of keeping things inside shelves is to find them easily, right? But then I find it easy to find something when things are lying all around the floor or on the bed.

4. Don’t peep into my computer screen. When you do that, even innocent stuff becomes embarrassing. And really, it wasn’t me who changed the definition of “innocence”. It’s time you change your idea of the computer being a useful machine.

I wish to write something pleasant to end this letter but I have to catch up some sleep before the witch with the broom arrives.

With nothing but love,