(Middle in The Tribune today)Wish you eye flu!
By Rajbir Deswal
KNOWING that I am a late riser, friends generally don’t call me early. But that day I was in for a surprise, as the call was from someone who generally doesn’t call me, even late during the day.
Half in sleep, my hand drifted to the cell-phone, to read with my purpose-tuned eyes, when on the screen flashed a name I couldn’t believe. “All’s well, I wish!” I said when he started laughing. And a tad too loud at that, betraying his general disposition of routinely carrying a wooden face.
Laboriously I snail-paced to reach a sitting posture, adjusting the pillow to support my back, when my friend’s laughter evolved into a kind of shrill-scream of Mr Kohli, as in ‘Bride and prejudice: From Amritsar to LA’.
And then he became poetical reciting to me an Urdu couplet, “Har tarha ke jazbaat ka ailaan hain ankhen/Shabnam kabhi shola kabhi toofan hain ankhen! (Eyes proclaim emotions of all kinds/Eyes at times are dewdrops, fire or even a storm).
Even without an encore, or a ‘wah-wah’ from me, he seemed to fly again on wings-of-poesy when I chipped in to enquire if everything was alright with him. “Three days at home, and enjoying!” and presto he began crooning again, “Jab se tere naina mere naino se lage re/Tab se deewana hua sab se begana hua...!”
“What storm has hit you dear?” I asked a bit relaxed. “I have eye flu you see. Conjunctivitis you see!” He informed musically using ‘you see’ twice as if as a note to enhance effect and as if to convey Blind (sic) Milton’s approval of ‘those who stand and wait’. “But being not on leave, do they permit you to stay home?” I asked and refrained from embarrassing him saying, “—to relax and sing and be poetic!”
“No, I went to office intentionally. He emphasised the last word and clarified, “lest they thought I was a shirker.” Seeing my red eyes, the boss said, “You seem to be having eye flu. Why not stay at home.” “No, I have no problem working in office. I told him with my tongue firmly in my cheek, when the boss kept insisting.” He said laughing again. “The boss said, I would spread the malaise and sought himself too to be excused!” he said.
“It’s after centuries that I lay curled in the bed, with no eye-shy business to blink, except having them closed all the while, and calling up friends to do some gup-shup!”
His boisterousness did not let him drop the receiver, which he generally is inclined to, and told me about one of his Muslim friends, who on Eid came to visit him, and insisted on hugging the festival way, about which he cautioned, proclaiming he had eye flu. “Arre chhodiye Sahab, gale miliye! And the next day, he reported on the phone that he had irritation in his eyes. Ha ha ha heeeeeeee!” my friend again guffawed.
“So that is how one needs to laugh away one’s sorrows!” I had a dig at him when again he sniggered, “Ig-jaktly” a la Javed Jaffrey in “Salaam Namaste.”
Then it was my turn to tell him to let me sleep, and hang up saying, “I wish you eye flu. Also a relapse. Don’t get well soon!”
KNOWING that I am a late riser, friends generally don’t call me early. But that day I was in for a surprise, as the call was from someone who generally doesn’t call me, even late during the day.
Half in sleep, my hand drifted to the cell-phone, to read with my purpose-tuned eyes, when on the screen flashed a name I couldn’t believe. “All’s well, I wish!” I said when he started laughing. And a tad too loud at that, betraying his general disposition of routinely carrying a wooden face.
Laboriously I snail-paced to reach a sitting posture, adjusting the pillow to support my back, when my friend’s laughter evolved into a kind of shrill-scream of Mr Kohli, as in ‘Bride and prejudice: From Amritsar to LA’.
And then he became poetical reciting to me an Urdu couplet, “Har tarha ke jazbaat ka ailaan hain ankhen/Shabnam kabhi shola kabhi toofan hain ankhen! (Eyes proclaim emotions of all kinds/Eyes at times are dewdrops, fire or even a storm).
Even without an encore, or a ‘wah-wah’ from me, he seemed to fly again on wings-of-poesy when I chipped in to enquire if everything was alright with him. “Three days at home, and enjoying!” and presto he began crooning again, “Jab se tere naina mere naino se lage re/Tab se deewana hua sab se begana hua...!”
“What storm has hit you dear?” I asked a bit relaxed. “I have eye flu you see. Conjunctivitis you see!” He informed musically using ‘you see’ twice as if as a note to enhance effect and as if to convey Blind (sic) Milton’s approval of ‘those who stand and wait’. “But being not on leave, do they permit you to stay home?” I asked and refrained from embarrassing him saying, “—to relax and sing and be poetic!”
“No, I went to office intentionally. He emphasised the last word and clarified, “lest they thought I was a shirker.” Seeing my red eyes, the boss said, “You seem to be having eye flu. Why not stay at home.” “No, I have no problem working in office. I told him with my tongue firmly in my cheek, when the boss kept insisting.” He said laughing again. “The boss said, I would spread the malaise and sought himself too to be excused!” he said.
“It’s after centuries that I lay curled in the bed, with no eye-shy business to blink, except having them closed all the while, and calling up friends to do some gup-shup!”
His boisterousness did not let him drop the receiver, which he generally is inclined to, and told me about one of his Muslim friends, who on Eid came to visit him, and insisted on hugging the festival way, about which he cautioned, proclaiming he had eye flu. “Arre chhodiye Sahab, gale miliye! And the next day, he reported on the phone that he had irritation in his eyes. Ha ha ha heeeeeeee!” my friend again guffawed.
“So that is how one needs to laugh away one’s sorrows!” I had a dig at him when again he sniggered, “Ig-jaktly” a la Javed Jaffrey in “Salaam Namaste.”
Then it was my turn to tell him to let me sleep, and hang up saying, “I wish you eye flu. Also a relapse. Don’t get well soon!”
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