Erudite conversation

When you call somebody after a bad day’s work, an exuberant ‘Hey’ on the other end of the line always manages to lift your mood. You know the person has recognized your number, knows that you are calling and is happy to hear your voice.
I called up my roommate S on her mobile from my office a while back. The usual mundane conversation ensued after the happy-to-hear-your-voice ‘hey’.
S (enthusiastically): Hey
Me (half-dead and surrounded by piles of incomplete work): Hey. Where are you?
S: I am in office. Where are you?
Me (confused because I thought she had recognized my office number on her caller id): Do you know who this is?
S: Yes. Obviously.
Me: Who?
S (getting impatient): Obscured
Me (totally baffled): How did you know it was me on the phone?
S (exasperated): You call me from your office everyday you moron. I recognize the number.
Me (still confused owing to the brain-dead state): Then why are you asking me where I am?

Women of the Night

S by profession is a qualitative researcher. It might sound fancy to most of you but what she really does is pass opinions about people she doesn’t know. (How I hate it when she reads me so well.)
For the past couple of weeks she has been doing some depth interviews (interviews with one person which extends for hours). Don’t ask for further details, as I have no idea. S and I have an unspoken rule- we don’t discuss our work at home. Ethics and all.
Anyways, all I did know was that she was interviewing all sorts of people at all sorts of hours and at places I didn’t know of (which would include most of Mumbai. Damn! I need to do a Bombay-tour or at least buy a map.). And all by herself. I duly expressed my concern regarding the safety of it all.
One evening as we settled ourselves in front of the TV she said that the guy she had interviewed that day was a goon.
‘A goon!’ I exclaimed. ‘How do you know?’
‘The neighbours,’ she said. ‘The neighbours know everything.’
‘I wonder what our neighbours think of us,’ I said dreamily.’
‘They probably think we are prostitutes, what with the hours we keep.’

Predicament

It was another of our quiet evenings together. Just S, me and the TV. In the midst of a very boring movie I went into a monologue about something that was a little more interesting than what was showing on TV. After five minutes of talking non-stop I realized that S was not listening to me at all. I paused and let the exciting fight scene conclude so she could give me her full attention. Then I turned to her and said in hurt voice, “S you’re not listening.” And she said, “Well, You’re not talking.”

Cruelty an artform

My roommate S is the nastiest unkindest cruelest meanest person I know. One week after an abscess was removed from my body, the surgeon advised that I should get my dressing done at home instead of traveling to the hospital everyday. (Yes, the Operation Theatre experience was very painful. Yes, I cried, but not too much. Yes, I am a brave girl. Yes, I should be resting at home but there’s too much work. Yes, health comes first, but if I am jobless I shall starve and that’s not healthy either. Yes, I am open to all the sympathy that I can get. Yes, I sound needy. Yes, I am needy. Yes, Yes! I shall get back to the story.)
S had a field day changing the dressing for me. We locked the door lest the maid found us in a compromising state. S could not stop giggling. I gave her a reprimanding look and told her that it just showed how ‘close’ we are to each other. S, still giggling, removed the dressing and gasped. A deafening silence ensued for a brief five seconds. And then she spoke, “There’s a big gaping hole”. Breaking into another uncontrollable giggling fit she said, “We can use it for a candle holder.”
As I said, my roommate S is the nastiest unkindest cruelest meanest person I know.

Made for each other

Today is just one of those days.
I remember coming home from work last night at some unearthly hour and passing out on my bed despite the damn crows croaking outside. I must barely shut my eyes and it was time to wake up. My roommate S and I were running very late for work (When I say late I mean too late to be early. Our intention had been to get to work an hour early. Otherwise we made it safely within the normal office time.) I ended up taking a cab to office, something I just cannot afford this month and generously offered to give S a lift. We passed this fabulously expensive restaurant that serves the yummiest and the most fabulously expensive plaits. Obviously the temptation was too strong to resist. (Moral of the story is that once you start spending money there’s no end to it.) We were at a signal, happily munching away our fabulously expensive plait, when a young boy with a baby hanging from his shoulders approached our cab and started begging.
‘Didi, das rupaye de do, bacche ko doodh pilana hai. Bhagwan aapko sukhi rakhe. Aap dono ki jodi salamat rakhe.’
S and I looked at each other. Had we heard correct? Eww Eww Eww!
We have now decided that we will start spending more time with other people.

You're my everything

I share a multi-faceted relationship with my roommate S

The Child
Me (posing for her): S, does this dress look nice?
S (without looking up from her laptop): Uhun.
Me: Can I wear these sandals with the dress?
S (without looking up from her laptop): Uhun.
Me: This lipstick?
S (without looking up from her laptop): Uhun.
Me: Can I grow my beard?
S (without looking up from her laptop): Uhun.

The Mother
Me: S, you better clean up this mess right now. Look at your room. It looks like a pigsty.
S (guilty-faced): Yeah I’ll do it.
Me: When?
S: Soon
Me: I don’t know why you can’t put things back into the right place. Just keep everything back in its right place and there’ll never be a mess to clear up.

The Wife
Me: …and I got such a good deal at the market. Imagine Heinz Baked Beans cans at just Rs. 30 per can…
S (busy working on some office work she has got home): Ok
Me: You’re not even listening to me.
S: I am listening while I work.
Me (in a very hurt tone): You never listen to me.

The Husband
Me (Tring Tring): Hullo. S?
S: Yeah.
Me: I am going out with friends for a drink or two. Don’t wait up for me. I’ll be late.

Friends

My roommate S and me are the laziest creatures during the weekends. We plop ourselves in front on the TV with everything in roll-able/ crawl-able distance so we don’t have to get up. Unless it is to go to the bathroom. And we’re working on an alternative for that as well. This avoids ‘You’re closest to the kitchen’ and ‘You’re closest to the newspaper rack’ (This was to check if there was anything worth watching on TV) kind of conversation.
But natural, the comparison to Joey and Chandler and their famous not-moving-from-the arm-chairs-episode came up. The conversation that ensued is as follows.

Me: Man, we are just like Chandler and Joey
S: Yeah man. I don’t want to be Chandler though.
Me: Good. I’d rather be Chandler. He’s much better.
S: And I’d rather be Joey. At least I am handsome.
Me: I am funny.
(The conversation starts heating up.)
S: Stupid funny! I am an actor.
Me: Yeah an out of work actor.
S: I am in Days of our lives
Me: A soap Opera. Sniff Sniff. Hand me my kerchief.
S: You are just an accountant.
Me (immediately defensive): I am not an accountant
S: Yeah. Then what do you do?
Me (Racking my blank memory): I uhh… I uhh … I uhh.. I at least have a steady job. You don’t even have that.
S: I get all the girls.
Me: I could get girls. I just don’t need any girls. I am married to a great girl.
S (in a scornful voice): You are married to a maniac with OCD.
Me (getting angry): Hey! At least I am married.
S: Who wants to get married!
Me (sarcastically): People with a GOAL in life. Something you can’t even spell!
(We both pause now, out of breath. Our eyes spitting fire. We turn to the TV screen for a respite. Baywatch is on.)
Me: Look at them run
S: Run. Run. Run
Me (smiling blissfully at S who is smiling back blissfully): Pass me a slice of Pizza, will you?

Oops!

And I thought that no one could be more accident-prone than I am. I accept defeat. No one (and no one) can ever beat my flat-mate.
§ How many of you have managed to get your ear stuck in a door? (Yes, you read it right. The ear. The one that receives audio signals and sends it to the brain. No, her ears do not protrude like a goblin’s. She’s got nice pretty well proportioned ears. How did she manage to stick it between the door? Don’t ask me! But that’s something that would never happen to me. Hair stuck caught in a car fan, yes. But, ear stuck in a door, never.)
§ How many of you have managed to fracture your hand while dancing? (She was dancing with the stud in one of her office parties. Stud to be read as the biggest loser who thinks no end-to-himself. He asked her for a dance, claiming that he’d been attending dancing classes. He twirled her around in an elaborate dance routine, and he FORGOT to let go off her hand. There was an audible crack as her bone broke. Audible in the loud party music.)
§ How many of you have got your foot tendons injured while dancing? (This time she swears she was careful. She was careful not to dance with anyone who claimed to be a good dancer. She lucked upon a guy wearing heavy boots, who stepped on her TWICE. She bit her lip not to cry out in pain. With the music blaring, there’s not much point in crying out aloud. She asked him sarcastically, if he’d been attending dancing lessons. He told her, his face red with pleasure, that he needed none as he danced well naturally.)
As I said before, she’s the winner hands down (or bones broken).