The Accusation:
I am sure you had no inkling that I was the culprit – that it was this despicable me who caused climate change; that I am the guy who’s responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer, the melting of the glaciers, the increase in the global temperature, and everything else that is wrong with our Earth climatically!
But Mom thinks I am.
The Digression:
Perhaps I overreach when I say that “I” am the one responsible for climate change – I should keep my language inclusive and say, “my kind.” But then Mom doesn’t care about the newfangled norms of inclusive communication, nor does she think that there are others of my kind – for her, I am a unique piece of work, a man who shot himself in both his feet – in the first foot by marrying a girl who became his bane, and in the second foot by leaving a cushy job and becoming a programmer. She, of course, doesn’t say this in English…she uses the gorier and more violent hindi expression – apne payr per khud kulhari maari hai tumne,” (you swung an axe to chop off your own feet!)
I apologize for digressing, but talking about Mom makes me lose my sense of direction – actually, if I followed Mom’s example and talked gory, when I talk about her, I feel like a freshly decapitated chicken who has lost his sense of purpose.
But oh, I’ve digressed even further. We were talking about climate change, and Mom’s belief that I, her errant son, is the man who has caused it.
Let me lay it out for you – plain and simple, unsalted and un-spiced!
The Situation:
I was on phone, talking to an acquaintance about a mobile app, when I felt the quality of the air around me change. I could feel it heat up and trust me when I say that I even felt a build up of static energy around me. With the phone still in my hand, I turned to identify the source of the heat. Right there, about two feet from me, stood Mom – huffing and puffing, and fuming from her ears and nostrils. She stood akimbo, her feet planted firmly on the ground, as far from each other as the perimeter of her saree would permit, and her huge round eyes bore into me.
When Mom stands like that, she means business – and in her case, business means giving me run down on one of my crimes.
So I hastily ended the conversation with my acquaintance, and turned to face her fully.
The Conversation:
“Yes Mom,” I asked, trying to appear brave, like I didn’t care even if she has a machete hidden behind her.
“So you are the one,” she jabbed a finger at my nose.
That made me curious. She couldn’t be thinking of me as “the one” who’d save the world. Spiderman, Superman, Wonder woman, Green Lantern, Batman, Cat Woman…there was a whole brigade recruited by DC Comics and Marvel guys, who were working their butts off to save the world. And yet, who knew – Mom might’ve seen something in me that had escaped the creators of these superheroes!
“The one?” I enquired.
“The one who is causing this whole issue of climate change. The one who is making the world hotter. The one who is responsible for the odd-even scheme, that has made us miserable!”
“The odd-even scheme? But Arvind Kejriwal is responsible for it, and you know it,” I forgot those other allegations by her…for this I had proof!
“You, he, what is the difference? He studied in IIT, he became a politician; you studied in IIT, you became a programmer. See how both of you took an axe to your feet?”
The fact that becoming the chief minister of Delhi is no mean feat and by no means comparable to becoming a programmer, was lost on Mom.
“And you are worse than Arvind Kejriwal,” she continued, “you and your programmer friends are the reason why we have been facing climate problems, which led to the odd-even scheme, and I had to pay twice the regular fare to hire a cab to go to Delhi on the 23rd, because the number of your bucket of bolts ends in a 4!” she spewed it all forth in one fiery breath, as she towered and I cowered.
“Please explain, Mom. How am I responsible for climate change?” Even when under parental fire, a programmer can’t let go of his need to understand the logic.
“You are one of those who are messing up the clouds, aren’t you? You access the cloud, you store stuff on the cloud, you and your ilk engage in cloud-corrupting!”
And then it dawned upon me.
“Cloud-computing?” I said.
The Judgment:
“Call it what you will – all I know is that one mustn’t mess with nature. You use those clouds for other things, then they don’t do what they are supposed to do – THEY…DON’T…MAKE…RAIN!”
Note for the readers of the QSM Magazine:
The May-June Issue of the QSM Magazine should roll off the line by May 15th. The theme of this issue is “juggling responsibilities.” Have your say in it, by sending me your thoughts in less than 150 words by May 10th.
Thank you!
The Cloud-corruptor.
And once again, I find myself on Mummyji’s side. Make. It. Rain. Just do whatever tinkering you have to in those clouds and make it rain. Or else I’ll first melt, then evaporate.
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Thank you Piyusha. I was feeling rather lost (or “beached”, as the second post of today proclaims.) I was wondering where all my old blogging friends had vanished. Glad to see that you are still here. Delhi is turning into an oven, isn’t it?
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Delhi is a furnace 😦 I can’t think in this heat. I want to go back to Sikkim 😥
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Sikkim? You are from Sikkim? I thought you were a delhite through and through.
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I am. I went to Sikkim on a short holiday in mid-April. And I now want to go back.
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Aha…I knew I could smell a fellow Delhite over the Internet. So Sikkim got to you…aren’t the hills addictive?
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Oh, absolutely! And Sikkim was so clean and safe and beautiful and …. Sigh! ❤
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Wifey is nuts about hills…she spent most of her childhood in the north-east, I know she’s going to drag me to every hill that she’s ever lived on – but that aside, I love hills too – the serenity and the peace…it’s so welcoming.
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wow! She must have such beautiful memories. I’ve stayed in hills and visited them quite a bit too so I used to think I’ll get bored. But no, every time I like it even more. 😀 You’re so right about the serenity and peace.
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I trust she has. I’d be happier if I could wipe my childhood memories off my mental slate – but our experiences makes us who we are…so that mightn’t be a good thing.
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I was reading and thinking what would be auntyji’s logic behind accusing you. Still continued reading and finally when the suspense disclosed I was laughing like anything. I realized I have not laughed this much in recent time.
Thanks for spreading laughter, always its a pleasure reading your posts.
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Thank you Megha. I know it’s not one of my better posts, but if it could make you laugh, it mustn’t be too bad either. Thanks for the encouragement. Mom’s logic often escapes me, and I am sure mine escapes her. God must’ve mixed up the labels on either the babies or the moms – I’m not so sure he meant Mom to be my mom.
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You are your best critique and I find you being too hard on your self. This post is equally good like your other posts. Keep up the good work.
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Thank you, Megha. I’ll take your advice and not be harsh on myself 😀 See, I am laughing already 😀
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Your mother would probably take more kindly to me. I never upload things to the cloud (not knowingly anyway). I didn’t know that by behaving in this way I was also saving the planet. 🙂
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Bun, you could win her approval for a day, at the most two. Nobody stays in my Mom’s good books longer than that. I’d recommend donning the superman costume and keeping that bag on your head…going incognito would save your from her, and being superman will help you save the world.
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Thanks for the tip, Anand. Tackling your mother might be an even tougher challenge for me than facing Batman. 🙂
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If I remember right, I once saw Batman run back to his own mom crying, because my mom had gotten hold of him and pulled his ears for going around in that mask. So you are right.
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Ouch! Sounds painful! 🙂
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Not much pain involved here – after all batman isn’t her own son.
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True! 🙂
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I kind of like the gory terminology better! Take an axe to the feet – quite horrifying! And cloud computing! Wah! That is hilarious! You can tell Mom that all the clouds are here on the east coast of the USA hovering over the Trump Tower in New York City. All the hot air has attracted them! 🙂
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Dr. Sorick. Thank you for appreciating Mom’s visualization of my feet being hacked off – I seriously hope that your appreciation doesn’t go to her head – Trump is an innocent babe…
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Shh, don’t tell her! 😂
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“Mom” is the word!
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¡Mudskippers Anand! Stop messing with those clouds! The more files you upload in them, the more dense they get! This makes them hotter, which makes the planet hotter! The files also suck all the water out of the clouds, which means there’s less rain!
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Not denser than Mom’s grey matter, I would think – nor can the planet get hotter than her temper. Look who’s complaining.
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I love your Mom’s literal take on life!
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Ah, finally, we have one willing scapegoat. Would you like to spend a week in her company? All expenses paid (these days, her listeners have upped their rates, but she’s willing to spare no expense to get the right candidate for the listening job.)
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All this for just one of your sins? Well, I’ll help you out.. tell her I’ve confessed to storing books in the clouds also. If you still need help, we could announce a form of “confessional” on BW. Got a lot of us sinners over there shooting paperwork into the sky, getting lots of them stuck up there soaking up the rain water.
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Calling you as a witness would strengthen her case. She’d roll up her eyes and say, “I knew that there were more of your kind!” But I’ll give it a shot and report on her response.
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Wait, did I just read 15th? Waaaaaaa!!!!!!!! You promised 10th. I have in written from you. Email now admissible in supreme court. Where’s your mummyji? I’ll complain to her. Aunttyyyyyyy…….!!!
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Very sorry about that – but the cover-art isn’t done yet. And about complaining to Mom, I always thought you were a bright young lady, Piyusha. emails might be admissible as evidence in the Supreme court, but in Mom’s court arguments and evidences are banned.
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😥 I shall protest about the gross injustice. 😦 Mummyji will be on my side, i know that. Especially since I am on her on the issue of cloud computing. 😛
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Protest to your heart’s fill – I’ve been protesting against the gross injustice meted out to me all my life. You’ve got the right to commit your own blunders 😀
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That literally made me LOL. You are endlessly humorous, and I love how you spun that story. Or, was it mostly true? It’s side-splittingly funny, and real life is never that funny for me.
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Thank you. Coming from you it’s high praise. Anandhotep blushed so much that even his bandages turned pink. He sends you a muffled thank you because his mouth is chock-full of bandages that he gobbled up in his embarrassment. So glad you visited. Hope things are going great on the novel-writing front.
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