Monday, March 31, 2014

I slapped him


GS Ramesh


Is somebody else’s life so trivial that we can put an end to it with a gun shot? No remorse, no regrets? The bullet incident did change my thinking about life. It made me adhere to the principle – Live and Let Live. This has held me in good stead for the past few decades.

I turn 60 years on April 1(my birthday according to the Hindu calendar). April 1 is a significant day in my life as I started my career on this day way back in 1977. As I usher in retirement age tomorrow, departure from work is certainly not on my agenda but I know there are a few surprises planned for me by son and Daughter in Law (Daughter). Having said that, it ceases to remain a surprise anymore! Forgive me son- Me and my inquisitive nature! Old habits die hard!

Besides office work, I know that my son is keeping himself busy the last few days organizing a shastipoorthi to celebrate this momentous day of my life. I must confess that I can’t wait to get married to the same woman all over again. My happiness knows no bounds as I am a few hours shy from turning 60 and I thank the almighty for showering me with so much love!

Let me take you back down memory lane yet again as I recall a peculiar incident that happened just after I joined work. Our office was U shaped with a corridor in the centre. All the heads of various departments had separate chambers as offices and that included yours truly! Every day one workmen by name Ganesh used to come and open each and every door of the office chambers and hurl random abuses at me and all the other officers  that included me too. The man obviously used to be drunk so my colleagues just laughed at him without ever retorting to his coarse language. When I enquired about his strange behavior, I was simply told that “this is a regular habit of ganesh’.

Being the curious kind, I decided to use my methodology to unravel the real reason for ganesh’s queer conduct. Like clockwork, Ganesh arrived at the scheduled time the next day and was his usual self - totally drunk with profanities pouring out of his mouth every nanosecond. The moment he opened my office door, I quickly pulled him inside and locked the door. My curiosity got the better of me and I started interrogating him “tell me why are you doing this? What makes you come here everyday and disrupt the peace in this office”.  Being completely inebriated, ganesh was in no state to answer my queries let alone understand them! He started flinging his hands violently in an effort to escape from my firm grasp. Today I confess that I slapped Ganesh and he ran away shouting that he was beaten up by me. Seeing Ganesh dart across the corridor with a hand on his puffed-up cheek, people were perplexed for a moment but they quickly attributed it to his drunkenness and forgot about it. But I could not forget about Ganesh.I was bent upon finding out the cause for his strange behavior. Actually I felt bad for him and wanted to help him out. So I enquired about where he lived and went straight his house the next day.

Seeing me at his doorstep, he ran out of his own house leaving me totally stunned yet again. The sprinter in me who was probably inactive since many years was quick enough to wake up. Yes….I started chasing him and didn’t stop till I caught him. I brought him to my office and asked him why he was drinking so much.

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