Harmless Gossip | Manu Kurup

2006
August

K came to my room. It had only been two days since we met. It was a new place for the both of us. I was lost in thoughts, lying down on my bed, pretending to read something that no longer held my attention. K stood at the door and, momentarily forgetting the uneasiness of addressing someone he did not know, asked me, “Do you drink?”

I looked up. I kept my book down. I stood up focusing my eyes on him. Rage started building inside me. He shrugged and started, “Hey, it’s okay if…”

“I do.” I said in a breath. That night we drank like a bunch of pirates who got their largest loot followed by bloodshed. Now that I am looking back, I think we should have hung the third pirate who was with us that day… could have avoided a lot of things in that way!

I have introduced K through some of my posts. We have been friends through a lot of things. We have turned enemies too. But, as always we get back together because we have a couple of nice and sweet common friends. We have fought each other (literally), fought together watching each other’s back (literally) and rode together… all things that made a blood-bond between warriors in ancient fables. I bought my new beer mugs only for the both of us to sit and drink in this summer.

They are not the conventional type of beer mugs. They look like what they used in the Lord of the Rings: Two Towers or even the old film The Vikings, starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis. I bought it from Shilparamam, the arts and craft village in Hyderabad, paying just Rs. 150.

Summer is getting worse folks, and the three things you need badly to survive in Hyderabad now are a good pair of Ray Ban, a refrigerator filled with cold drinks (of your choice) and ice cubes and a cooler/air conditioner.

- Manu

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Mom is planning to adore the walls of our first floor with my precious photographs. I’ve sent her a few of them and she has picked these ones… I thought I might share’em with all of you.

These photographs are the ones I shot while taking a stroll with my mother in her newly designed garden. She and Dad re-designed the garden recently and during my last visit home, I was helping her with the transferring of some flower pots. She would say things like, “Look at your hands! They look pampered…. So, help me with these pots!” And I would counter that by saying, “I work in a University not at some construction site!”

I asked her to credit some money in my account for all the photos that I was sending her.
She said she’d send me a cheque of Rs. 100000/- and if I wanted more, she’d wire some money to my Swiss Bank Account.

Mom says that she wants to re-design our interior now that she has time… The school is closed for the summer vacation and Dad’s around…Let’s see how far they go in doing anything there.

- Manu