It's one of those phases when everything seems to go wrong. Every God damn thing. Its not about getting off bed on the wrong side (there is but one side, the other edge is locked with the wall)...its not a black cat crossing the alley on a dark winter night...or a lone song-bird cooing on the clothes line...It just happens. When you least expect it. When you can least handle it.
She woke up to find her cell switched off...the battery needed to be re-charged, but then there was some problem with the charger connection...next she stepped out into the courtyard, only to find that it had rained the previous night and the once semi-dry clothes were now fully drenched (they resembled the bedraggled crow perched on the telephone pole on a cold wintry morning)...great! nothing decent to wear, she grumbled to herself, contemplating which of her least favorite kurtas she would don as she headed to the loo...God, she needed a splash of fresh water on her face, and wipe off the previous night's sallow after-taste....she opened the tap...no water...What the hell, it was just 7 am...how could have the tank run dry so early...anyways, sometimes...shit happens...she ran helter-skelter and finally found a ground floor bathroom at the other corner of the hostel which had some water feebly dripping from the tap...somehow, she managed to take a half-bath and head to the lab...
The breakfast table was adorned by her friend, U, looking as Mr. Grumpy as usual...with a sorry piece of semi-toasted bread in his hand...poor guy, he usually steered clear off the southern delicacies and to find a weird cousin of the ubiquitous idli as the only food besides bread/tea wasn't a very happy option...he took it out on her, by pretending to be blase..when that didn't fetch any reaction, he started complaining about how late she always got in the morning...she tried rationalising, and when that didn't work, lost her cool...shouted back at him...and then they decided to not have lunch together...he in his characteristic melodramatic way, she in her usual detached manner...shit happens...once again..
Once she stepped into the lab, she thought things would get rosier....after all she had got a much-anticipated slot on the machine...all that was now there between a data collection and elation was mounting the crystal...V helped, so did the other V, but the precious little mm-sized thing flew out of focus from under the microscope...anyways, it had been some five hours since the day had started, and by then she had habituated herself to her poor fate for the day...somehow, another kutti piece (good things come in small packages) was captured...and the experiment began...hours passed...the progress wasn't satisfactory, but not too bad as well...and then she realized that in the midst of all these, she had forgotten to call him...and when she finally did, two hours off the mark, she had to have a conversation with his answering machine...the experiment was nearing completion by now...the first phase of it anyway...and then it happened...the capillary (now ultra-brittle at 90K)....broke and the last eight hours' work was wasted in a fraction of a milli-second...shit happens yet again..
Night fell. She felt kind of lost, sort of lazily half-awake...it was an hour past the mock seminar...things were totally out of her control. And then, when she felt that the day, now about to get over, had been more than enough....and was hoping for a rosier setting for the days to come...shit happened..yet again....the Carpenters lyrics strummed at the back of her head.."We are lost inside this lonely game we play....we are lost in this masquerade"...
She woke up to find her cell switched off...the battery needed to be re-charged, but then there was some problem with the charger connection...next she stepped out into the courtyard, only to find that it had rained the previous night and the once semi-dry clothes were now fully drenched (they resembled the bedraggled crow perched on the telephone pole on a cold wintry morning)...great! nothing decent to wear, she grumbled to herself, contemplating which of her least favorite kurtas she would don as she headed to the loo...God, she needed a splash of fresh water on her face, and wipe off the previous night's sallow after-taste....she opened the tap...no water...What the hell, it was just 7 am...how could have the tank run dry so early...anyways, sometimes...shit happens...she ran helter-skelter and finally found a ground floor bathroom at the other corner of the hostel which had some water feebly dripping from the tap...somehow, she managed to take a half-bath and head to the lab...
The breakfast table was adorned by her friend, U, looking as Mr. Grumpy as usual...with a sorry piece of semi-toasted bread in his hand...poor guy, he usually steered clear off the southern delicacies and to find a weird cousin of the ubiquitous idli as the only food besides bread/tea wasn't a very happy option...he took it out on her, by pretending to be blase..when that didn't fetch any reaction, he started complaining about how late she always got in the morning...she tried rationalising, and when that didn't work, lost her cool...shouted back at him...and then they decided to not have lunch together...he in his characteristic melodramatic way, she in her usual detached manner...shit happens...once again..
Once she stepped into the lab, she thought things would get rosier....after all she had got a much-anticipated slot on the machine...all that was now there between a data collection and elation was mounting the crystal...V helped, so did the other V, but the precious little mm-sized thing flew out of focus from under the microscope...anyways, it had been some five hours since the day had started, and by then she had habituated herself to her poor fate for the day...somehow, another kutti piece (good things come in small packages) was captured...and the experiment began...hours passed...the progress wasn't satisfactory, but not too bad as well...and then she realized that in the midst of all these, she had forgotten to call him...and when she finally did, two hours off the mark, she had to have a conversation with his answering machine...the experiment was nearing completion by now...the first phase of it anyway...and then it happened...the capillary (now ultra-brittle at 90K)....broke and the last eight hours' work was wasted in a fraction of a milli-second...shit happens yet again..
Night fell. She felt kind of lost, sort of lazily half-awake...it was an hour past the mock seminar...things were totally out of her control. And then, when she felt that the day, now about to get over, had been more than enough....and was hoping for a rosier setting for the days to come...shit happened..yet again....the Carpenters lyrics strummed at the back of her head.."We are lost inside this lonely game we play....we are lost in this masquerade"...
2 comments:
Frustation ... ami hote chaai sensation!!
an optimist would say that's a perfect day to write about...
:)
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