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".