Overheard...

I was at the bus-stop yesterday night waiting for a bus to go back home. As is normal for me to do, I was beating away at imaginary drums and shredding imaginary riffs on a guitar. People around were giving me strange looks but they didn’t know the mystical therapeutic powers of ‘Overture 1928’ by Dream Theater from the album ‘Scenes from a Memory’.

So, there I was, totally lost in my world, on a huge stage surrounded by thousands of people and bathed in eerie strobe lights when it began raining. Then, this kinda-cute looking girl decides that getting wet in the rain isn’t a good idea and ran under the very shelter that was my stage. Damn!...but the nice guy that I am I sat quietly…Then she whips out her oh-so-fancy-and-nifty-with-neon-lights-toothbrush-and-makeup-kit mobile phone and begins jabbering into it.

Now, the things is that, I don’t listen in on other people’s conversations, especially ones in which I can hear only one side, but the lady’s concept of speaking in a low voice was missing something – namely, the low voice. She was drowning out the noise of the eight-o-clock rush hour traffic…

I kept still for sometime, hoping that seeing an enthusiastic drummer go “statue!” in the middle of an involved drum solo sent out a subtle message that screamed “SHUT UP ALREADY!!!”. No go…she went on and on. I whipped out a pad and a pen and started taking down notes, and this is how the conversation went…

“I thought that you people were angry with me so I stopped keeping in touch with you, but then now that I have called you and it’s all cleared; I will call you people up regularly…” (damn…how many more conversations do I have to endure?)

“This Jaffer(?) is crazy, ya. Everyday in the morning he keeps sending these romantic messages and good morning messages…”(People who have sense say "good morning" in the morning and "shut up" when you are loud…)

“I promised my friend that I would watch Da Vinci Code with her, but I want to read the book before I watch it…”(God, help you friend. Or alternatively, you could put duct tape on her mouth when you are watching the movie…)

“No…but I want to read the book first. I mean…I have to understand something about all this fundoo stuff before I watch the movie, no??? It’s become like studying for one exam…but I have finished only three chapters. You know, people tell me sometimes that books are dragging in the beginning but later they get so gripping that you can’t put the book down at all…I hope it like that for me[sic!]” (Mr.Brown, please please…grip her around the neck. And could you make it really tight…?)

“You wanted to meet in Forum, but that is so far from your office no?”(Yes, now could you get away real far from me…)

“Oh…it is all very expensive there??? So what do you do – just window shopping?”(No, they sweep the floors, clean toilets and look for lost puppies to scrounge up enough money to buy a piddly little panty that costs as much as half the GDP of a small country…duh!)

“So your boss is helping you out because he is leaving. So nice of him, ya. You like your work and all no?”(Oooo…how sweet. The poor chap is quitting because of your stupid calls maybe. Have a heart you loud-mouthed nincompoop…)

“Actually I am meeting this senior of mine from BITS Pilani, who has come for his holidays from the US for lunch.”(Don’t tell me you studied there….ah…well figures…no one told you to keep your voice down in the middle of the desert did they?)

“He keeps talking about all this things in Da Vinci Code…Mary Magdalene, Holy Grail, Priory of Sion and all that. I googled them all yesterday so that I don’t feel bored tomorrow. He is so fundoo, you know…”( Yes, I know. Thank you. He probably googled it too, but then both of you are from the middle of a desert)

And then, the phone went dead. I think the connection was broken and the network was too clogged to take the load of an entirely pointless call. For once, I actually prayed that the networks would remain clogged till the bus arrived. And they did. She kept looking at her phone and cursed it hoping it would turn into a frog or something. Nothing of that sort happened, probably because she googled her spells…