Thursday, December 27, 2007

Bheja Fry!!

Post- dinner walks are generally relaxing and help catch some fresh air before I hit the bed and slumber off till the next morning. My walks are generally till the end of the road and back, and I let my mind wander off into a lot of muses( Of course, I don’t wander off to the extent that a vehicle would leave its skid marks permanently tattooed over my forehead!). It’s during some of these walks that I meet Mr. Dingoo (Ahem…not at all related to a similar sounding Australian wild dog!) The history of the name some other time maybe. Now…Mr. Dingoo is a septuagenarian who is still as fit as a….a…a…ahem…lets say dingo.

He makes it his worldly duty to impart his hard earned, most impressive, gleaned-from-all-sources infinite wisdom to anyone who dares cross his path! And that anyone so happened to be me!! (Don’t mistake me. I’m in no way repulsed by his talk. After all, it’s given me some blog fodder, no?!)

That fateful night I was in no mood to continue talking to Mr. Dingoo and to my luck I got a call. Well, as you might have already guessed the call was not from a human, much less an alien, it was from the phone company warning me to recharge my prepaid credit. Call it co-incidence a dog started barking at the same time.

So, after I attended the “call” Mr. Dingoo looked at me and said in his most convincing voice ever, “Do you know why the dog barked?” Of course I didn’t, besides it’s none of my business, as long as the dog isn’t chasing me! I didn’t know what he meant so I looked at him, a look I had perfected through 5 years of medical school…a look to show you’re paying utmost attention and a look that meant you cared about what was being said more than a mad dog biting off your posterior! He continued, “The dogs go mad because of the cell phones.” As much as I stood bewildered I decided to listen! (I knew a blog post was brewing!). “Yes…” he continued, “the cell phone towers sends waves that drive the dogs mad.”

Yet, here I was thinking all the while that dogs were mad and furious because the towers replaced a lot of telephone poles and now they were getting the shock of their lives trying to pee on electric poles or because of a particular miscreant virus of the Rhabdoviridae family! (Call me ignorant!! Sheesh! I was in total awe of this mans infinite wisdom!!)

I ventured to say that cell phones also use microwaves. He paused to clarify if it was the same waves that heated his dinner every now and then. Knowing where this was going, in a vain effort to say something else and venturing all the physics that I had so easily forgotten after PUC I prayed to Dear Mr. Einstein and said, “...uh...well…yes it’s the same microwave and…uh…aa…a…its different, as in it doesn’t have power…and…uh..”. My voice trailed off as I realized what I had just said. I looked at him with my foot firmly in mouth. Mr. Dingoo has got the upper hand here ladies and gentlemen…he quietly said, “See, that’s what it does, it cooks the brain…now, that’s why I don’t use a mobile.”

Another incoming call on the mobile, I just quietly cut the call. After this conversation I was convinced…bheja fry!!!