Thinking of the key each confirms a prison"
That was TS Eliot from Wasteland .
And he's so very true :(
Life has been completely devoid of any selfless motive nowadays,what makes the world go round is definitely not any benevolent or altruistic end but the intrinsic need to find a space,own it,and call it one's own..we are all colonisers....colonising other people's spaces, their rightful spaces...we are no better than the romans or the europeans,may be some other time there would be another Conrad writing about another Kurtz and I'm sure it'll be a Kurtz I know ;)
Well to cut a seemingly uninteresting story short, today I was again alone managing around 20 different things at once all because the person who works with me was unwell and hadn't come....and so I had to metamorphose into the venerable and veritable dashobhuja.
First, the day began with the left over proofs and today I finished two of them one by Prof. Aikant and another by Drakakis.For my life I couldn't imagine how can one be so drab ( Read..utterly boring )...Drakakis's paper was pure unadulterated torture,and frankly, I wouldn't have given a damn to it if UGC was not paying me for this job.
Just when I had begun feeling nice and sleepy ..the phone rang......TRRRRRRRIIIIIINNNNGGGGGGGGG......and that signalled my initiation into the chaotic cosmos. Work for Refresher Course,then call for MA admissions(was that a part of my portfolio..never knew..), and then opening doors for the MPhil classes..if I'm not wrong and if my memory holds good,then opening doors is definitely not a part of this Project Fellow job :(
The buggers can't even relieve me by turning in the key and letting themselves into the room...huh...
I had begun concentrating on my proofs again when a guy came in all of a sudden asking me if the HOD was available to which I said .."if she were,you could have seen her"
He said in a timid voice..."na rege jacchen keno ..ami mane,ektu kaaj chilo toh tai jigesh korchilam.."
I was ecstatic...he had understood that temperatures were soaring both outside and inside the room.
"ektu boshbo..?"
"boshun" ( read AS IF MY SAYING NO WOULD HELP YOU,JERK)
"aapni ki onar chatri?"
"aapnar ki dorkar aache?" ( read HOW MUCH WILL YOU TAKE TO SHUT YOUR MOUTH UP)
"ami,mane ekta choto kaaj chilo.."
"bolun" (read WOULD THAT MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR??????)
"aapnake bola jabe?"
"aar karuke toh dekhchi na ekhane..." ( exclaim and then read uuuuuuuuuuuggggggghhhhhhhhh....ARE WE PLAYING DUMB AND DUMBER???)
"hehehehe...ta aapni besh raagi mone hoye"
wht the heck @##%$#^%~$#@%&*....had he come here to comment on my lack of ever elusive equanimity???
(very calmly yet extremely rude)
"aapnar jodi kono kaaj na thake ta hole aapni jete paren,aamar onek kaaj pore aache?" (read GET LOST FOR MY SAKE )
"aapni ki ei room ei boshen"
ajeeb banda hai..bilkul Alpenliebe par gaya hai
He tired me to such an extent that I wanted to run out of the room..He could have given Rajpal Yadav in Waqt ..a race for time a run for his well earned money.Undeterred by a stone faced me,he went on with his crap...after about 10 more minutes at the end of which my sanity had vanished temporarily, the phone rang again.........and I was RELIEVED.
Never did Sir's voice sound so sweet..heard melodies are sweetest..huh,what does Keats know ;)
He told me that two professors would be coming downstairs to our room for some work.Any amount of work would have made me happy then,if only this bugger would disappear.
"aapnar onek kaaj,bujhtei parchi,khub birokto kore fellam..."
"na na..theek aache,aapnar dorkar ta bollen na toh...(read WHEN ARE YOU GETTING LOST FROM THE FACE OF THIS EARTH)
"ami cattle depreciation conceptual propriety (im sure i hv missed a word or two but it was something like this) niye kaaj korte chai,uni jodi ektu guide koren amake"
"Cattle..wht???"...couldn't believe what I was hearing...I was left befuddled...Head of the English Department and she guide him..with catttle..the thought was too preposterous to be true...was he even in his proper senses???
"cattle depreciation..aapnar interest nei eta te?"
"nah"( read CATTLE AND DEPRECIATION...GAWWWWWDDDDD...HELP!!!!)
"eta commerce er HOD r room toh?"
"eta English Dept." (read I NEED THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE NOWWWW...TOLERATED THIS GEEK WHO DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO READ FOR MORE THAN 10 MINUTES)
"ohhh,khub bhul hoye geche,aapnake besh birokto korlam"
"nahh,theek aache" (read...#$@#%$#^&@$#%;#%$^;;*@%#~!#@$@!&&*%)
Watching him scamper away hurriedly gave me more pleasure than watching Malfoy being slapped by Hermione...
My day had only just began....
Then came in two of the gentlemen from the Refresher Course..one from Chapra, Bihar and the other from Aizwal, Mizoram.They looked as lost as Alice would be in front of Prof. Trelawney looking into tea leaves for the grim.
Malsawmkima..isnt that a cuttttteeeeeeee name...hehe..he looks damn cute too,has a great voice....and to shatter all romantic illusions i might have had about him,he asked the other Prof....how do I address my principal...Dear Sir or Respected Sir or just Sir...I was stumped by that query. Leaving me to deal with the certificates and the letters to be typed and sent,they too scurried away...
After they left...in came another call and another Professor and some more unjust demands..I had been working since 1030 in the morning without any respite and that respite obviously had taken the shape of a mirage :(
The last nail on my poor poor little head was waiting for a Professor to hand in the keys of a room and he didn't leave that room till 530 and by that time the entire floor( the floor where our room is) resembled a curfew inflicted area.
I rushed away,chased by only my shadow, and then began the downpour...the skies had opened the floodgates,nothing could be seen properly...the pitter patter had transformed into a deluge and I longingly looked for Noah and his arc :(
Completely drenched as I sat down beside the window of the usual bus,looking out I could only mumble...
"Birth and copulation and death
That's all the facts when you come to the brass tacks,
I have been born and ONCE IS ENOUGH"
(TS Eliot, "Sweeney Agonistes").
No comments:
Post a Comment