Diamonds are no friends......

So it was Mothers day and I decide to go to a Jewellery store to get something for my Mom.

There are two such shops nearby my place; I just go there to check out what kind of stuff they have. I am there, checking out gold bangles, earrings and blah blah….. and this fat guy entered the shop.

I know this fat guy from my high school….I don’t know if he recognized me or not…not that we were ever friends…..he was may be three years junior to me…he was fat back in school too….and now he’s grown bigger. And me, well I was so skinny in school….really…but thanks to all the pizza’s and chicken cooked by Jose’s mom….I guess…. I am no longer skinny….damn I am getting carried away with school stuff…..lets get back to the shop.

A father and son duo runs this store. Old dude was attending to me and answering all my stupid questions. The fat guy walks up to the son, who was attending to a chick.

“Excuse me, can you help me out here….I have a small question”

This young guy asks him to wait…of course the fat guy needs to wait….the “son” was chatting (and showing rings) to this hot chick!!

The girl left in a few minutes. I was still looking at different stuff, wondering if I should really buy something, because no matter what it is, quite frankly my mom would want to exchange it.

“Yes sir, how can I help you” the young guy asked the fat guy.

“Oh … we found this in my mother’s safe….and apparently we don’t know what it is? “ He took out a “sparkling thing” from a faded envelope and handed it over to the young guy.

“I will check it for you, sir”

The young guy takes out some kind of instrument to test this thing. While he was performing this check, his father also got fascinated by what his son was doing and completely stopped answering my equally fascinating dumb questions. I was really pissed.

And I got all the more pissed when the young guy tells the fatso that, that “thing” is a “diamond”. Honestly I just caught a glimpse of that “Sparkling Thing” it was huge…..I have absolutely no knowledge about diamonds…. But if that thing is indeed a diamond….It’s a Fuc#$%& jackpot for that fatso…..there was a turmoil in my head….. May be I should go home and check some murky locker at my place….what the F&*^ ….. May be…. even my grand parents must have buried some “diamond, emerald, ruby” damn something…some precious stone …..Somewhere ……

Seriously, the old dude almost had a heart attack…..he was staring at the “diamond” like a zombie!! He completely ignored me……. That fatso and his fat “Diamond” completely shattered my existence. The fat guy asked the young guy about the approximate price of the diamond. The young guy told him that, it’s probably gonna be worth at least 4-5 lacs (Rupees).

The “mean” devil inside me wanted to smash all three of them and run away with the “diamond”. But this old dude’s zombie look was really creepy and scared the shit out of me. I walked out.

I walked over to this other shop which was very close to the previous one. I was still pissed and a part of my mind was still quarrelling with the “all mighty”. This shop was a little bit bigger than the other one. This one dude started showing me bangles, earrings and other stuff.

In like two minutes, the fat guy walks in here too.

NOW…..If there would have been a pisso-meter or some kindda gadget to measure my intensity of frustration, it would have exploded in all likelihood. I so wanted to slap this fatso…… and tell him to go and join a gym….may be go jogging….. or stop eating …..whatever…..do something meaningful in his sad/fat life …..And for Pete’s sake…he should stop following me from one shop to another with his fat diamond, which quite frankly was making me feel so minuscule.

I swear, but somehow the fat guy looked bigger to me. I mean it felt like he gained couple of kilos just because of the jackpot euphoria. He went over to the other counter and asked the same thing to the guy at the counter.

The guy at the counter took the “Diamond” in his hand ….just looked at it with his naked eye and said “Sir this is just ‘American Diamond’ you know Zircon”

I don’t know shit about diamonds…this is just gibberish for me….but still……somehow life was looking good again!! There was Hope……God was not trying to tell me that I am his nastiest creation!! I wanted to “salute” the guy at the other counter.

The guy at the counter added “This is probably worth Rs 150-200”

I was elated……the “devil” inside me wanted to set the fat guy in the school auditorium and tag him “JACK-ASS” ………

I knew pretty well that there is a possibility that this guy was wrong and that was indeed a real Diamond. But I wanted to end the story there. So I walked out…. yet again.

P.S: My mom is very “picky”; she “condemns” pretty much everything, even the things that she herself selects. So I guess I will just take her to the store and whatever she wants to buy……I love her though!! Also I "don't have no" intentions to offend/ridicule people are over weight. (“Fiction without any Friction”……please....peace)

in the balcony

We live different lives and we also live our lives in different rooms/houses/buildings. How does it feel to go back to your first home? Well you need to feel it to know it.

Yesterday I went to Kalkaji (DDA Flats) with mummy and saw the flat which was my first home. Mom wanted to go and meet her old friend Baby (I know too many Punjabi Aunties called Baby). Though she lives in Mumbai she was here visiting her father. Of course I was a toddler when we stayed there, but there was a weird familiarity with that place. I felt very comfortable there. I don’t know ….

It seemed like a metaphorical womb. It was strange to be there after so many years. But for my mom it was a lot more… She seemed thrilled…excited …I dunno…. I mean I was excited and all, but I had nothing to go back to…..you know like when I visited our house in Agra almost after 12 years (or my school in Agra) I had memories…. And there were so many of them, in all different colors and stories…. So much of “nostalgia”….

When she was standing outside, in the balcony, I swear I saw her trying to do away with her tears. I guess a lot was going on in her mind at that moment…memories of Vinny growing up and then me as a new born baby. All that time she spent alone in that flat, all the time she might have spent waiting for Papa.

It would have been too much of “nostalgia” for her; it was that time when we didn’t have a phone (Not that she could have called back home too often any which ways: STD Calls were too expensive back in 80’s). I know for sure that Papa must have been late everyday. Damn…that time must have been quite tough for her …all alone in this new city with us little devils... I guess that’s when she became friends with Baby Aunty and got cozy with the rest of her family too….I know, I am what I am because of what happened in her life….I wouldn’t have been here, if some other man would have been in her life. I mean it would have been some other damn sperm. But then it wouldn’t have been about me (it’s not about me anyways right now)…. How her life would have been then? Happier? It’s hard to say…..very hard indeed!!

While Baby Aunty was in the Kitchen preparing Chai, Mummy was in the balcony….. Perhaps in the flashback living through those seconds, minutes, hours, days she spent waiting for Daddy. She had no idea about the other woman then. Now, the fact that the only man she ever “loved” disgraced that relationship, sucks. She hates him now.

Be it a man or a woman, everyone wants to cherish each moment of their love life and take it to their grave. But mom really doesn’t have any of those memories…..it really doesn’t matter that we are doing pretty good as a family now (with Papa gone)…..She probably stands in the balcony thinking about all those years she spent raising three kids ....without much help from her husband. I wanted to go out in the balcony and ask her what she was thinking about…. But I just couldn’t….I don’t know why…..