Do you know him..???

Happened to pass by a new blog…Ok, now I have to admit, today was not a busy day at work…I had some free time and so naturally, I started going through blogs..and reached this new blog…He was sincerely describing some pathetic situations he had faced where he ended up being the laughing stalk of Colleague’s jokes…Now…that’s not uncommon…Natural, right…uhmm..atleast for me…IT WAS…

Fate took me to the Airport to work as a Ground Handling Agent for the International Airport in this country…woahhh…From the Ground Handling Agent's Uniform I grew to a prestigious Airline's high profile Uniform...was actually, in literal meaning, adopted by one of the European Airlines Group…Thus I reached their office…I was the only Asian “Girl”…rest of them were all Men or else Europeans…Naturally, the Indian Men had finally GOT someone to Target their jokes / pranks…I being a very NICE girl…the word NICE inside quotations…very often ended up wondering, why rest of them were laughing…while I never understood the joke…hehe!!!It was majorly attributed to my ignorance of the different SLANG Words used in Hindi language…especially words those had dirty or double meanings…grrrr…When they talked and laughed loud on such double meaning jokes, I would innocently look at their face…trying to understand head or tail of what they meant…and my Face made them laugh more…Oh, gosh…

Days passed…I was slowly but happily learning to interpret their jokes…Even if I was still innocent enough not to contribute, atleast I could share their laughs…At times, when I got stuck somewhere, I would use my charm, so that one of my colleague would explain to me Secretly what it meant….hehe!!! Each one helped me without others knowing…So, I was learning…The process was really difficult, friends…but still adventurous… and above all, filled with numerous EMBARASSING MOMENTS… If I start telling each one, I might need to publish a Novel on it…hehe!!! But this one below, I can’t help sharing…

One fine night (Ok, I had night shifts as the Departure time for the flight was something after midnight…)…I walked into the Office for the Pre-Flight preparations…and there, on the board was a big warning PRINT OUT…with the name of a passenger and his flight details. Usually, we very often get Security warning for some passengers who might have similar names to FBI Watchlist people. Such passenger’s passports are crosschecked and only after thorough Security checks they are allowed to board the aircraft…Normally, when I do my Pre-flight preparations I make a list of such possible Watch Lists on that day’s flight and keep it ready myself. But then, that night, I wondered, how come, and why such big Warning to be displayed…

As soon as, I started doing my work, came in the Duty Officer…He was like extremely serious..and said… “Dear, did u see that…He is Mr. Jones XXXX …He is flying in tonight’s flight…For no reason, he should be allowed to fly without you making a thorough check…He is extremely dangerous…You see, by hook or by crook, tonight you should hold Mr. XXXX at the check-in counters…” ….I could see that extra seriousness on his face and complete silence around me…All the other staffs were seriously listening to our conversation and was exclaiming “Oh..Mr. XXXX …God, hes travelling???”…” XXXX in our flight, very dangerous” etc etc… I wasn’t sure, but I felt freaked out…I could see some of them whispering and laughing on something…I sensed something wrong somewhere…but what??? NO IDEA…

Check-in counters opened 3 hours before departure time…I was waiting anxiously at the counters…to “CATCH” this so called Mr. XXXX….The Walkie-Talkie in my hand was busy that night…

“Calling Jzt…Calling Jzt…Location???”
“Check-in Counters. Over”
“Jzt, Have you got the passenger? Over”
“Negative, passenger still not reported. Over”
“Ok, Be on Alert. Report immediately. Over and Out”

Not one or two times…literally every 10 minutes one person or other made this Walkie Call for Mr. XXXX…I was almost out of my head by then…I knew, there was something that I was not missing…I could sense a hidden laughter in each of those calls…I felt, there was some big funny stuff in the entire issue…but what…grrr…I hated it…I had all sorts of weird thoughts…Maybe the Passenger is some world famous GAY…maybe he is some girl, whose name was of a man…Maybe, he was some Senior Staff of the Airlines from the Base station…I couldn’t wait longer…I couldn’t wait for the passenger anymore…

Walkie calls continued…Everybody who was listening to the conversation knew, I was getting desperate and freaked out…I sounded pathetic…It was then, I got a call on my mobile, from our Station Manager…He happened to be at office…One of the walkie which was in the office was screaming out in the loud speaker mode all these Public calls my colleagues were making to me…(Means, when they call me on Public Line, every single person holding the walkie could hear the other’s conversation…So if one message needed to be send to 3 people at 3 different location, we just had to make a single Public call…) So, my manager who heard the funny communications, couldn’t hold on any longer…and he had called me to rescue me…

“Jzt, What is happening?”
“I don’t know…Some passenger in Watchlist…unusually everybody is making big fuss…I was just worried…”
“Jzt, Don’t you speak Hindi…”
“Yes, I do…But why…This passenger is a British”
“If you understand Hindi, then what is the issue…They are just making fun of you…with the Passenger’s name”
“What…What is there is his name to make fun of me…”
“Oh, Jzt, what is that guy’s name…”
“Its Mr. Jones XXXX”
“And…?”
“And what…”
“You don’t know the meaning of XXXX??? !!!!”
“NOOOOO!!! ????”
“God, you are hopeless…I can’t explain any better… Please don’t ask anybody else… Ask any of your close friends…Bye…”

Grrr….I was lost…Now I knew, it was all a big prank…but I was still not getting the “Butt of the Joke..” … It was almost nearing midnight…and this hour of the night, which friend could I call…But I couldn’t bear it anymore…I had to know it…Finally…I called a good friend…grrr…and as soon as I heard his sleepy voice at the other end…I asked…

“Hey, Sorry to disturb now, yaar.But this is important…tell me something, I want to know something…Who is this LUND???...”

Utter Silence…and then ..... "WHATTTTTTTT???"

“Do you know him…???”

NB: The pic clearly explains my expression after my friend told me what it was all about...grrrrrrrrrrr....

What Happened to ME???

That bang in my head still persists…It has just got worse with something that happened yesterday…Am I losing it…I have been thinking through out for a valid reason for the incident…Or a logical meaning…I got no positive results…rather the thought scares me…gives my imaginations a wild and crazy colour…I am really confused…What is happening…

Now for the tiff with my colleague…it got sorted out by evening…I understood, my irritation was due to this bitter ache in my head…and his irritation was as I guessed right, A fight with his wife…Reason being, “He was late to reach home the previous eve…He been to some friends who flew in for some exhibition…” …The wife was informed…but she didn’t take it in good spirits….I suppose…Anyways, as a final say…wife reacted and he reacted…and so now its silence between them for the time being…uhmm…normal husband-wife fight…hope and wishing him good luck to sort it out soon…Anyways, I and he spoke and our irritation was solved…

Back to my YESTERDAY…By afternoon, he gave me a call…his bro is coming down from another city and he needs to go with his bro to the exhibition…He wants me to take his car in the eve…He will pick it up later from my place…FINE…It was lunch time…Our offices are in two different Towers…so he came down in his car to pick me…One of my office mate joined me to have lunch at the Mall…So, we together dropped back my colleague at his office building and was heading towards the Mall’s Food Court…Suddenly I thought of getting for myself a bottle of water…and for my office mate a Coke…We stopped the car in front of the building with the Grocery Store…

I rushed in…(our lunch break was fast getting over…)…I made a sudden halt in front of one of the glass doors inside the building…I could see the long corridor…I could see quite some glass doors…I could see nothing else…No Grocery Shop…No Café…Nothing…A sudden blankness engulfed me…a terror passed thru me…I was lost…I was trying hard to think…WHERE AM I…WHAT AM I DOING THERE…I knew I came to a shop…but I found no shop in there…I trying pulling open one of the doors in that dark corridor…it didn’t budge…a fear went past me…Was I in the wrong building... I found myself rushing out of the door…

I could see nothing clear…Maybe the Sun’s rays was scorching my eyes…I was just muttering… “The Shop…???”…I remember myself pointing to the building entrance…a passerby heard me (I suppose)…He replied… “The owner’s uncle passed away…so the shop is closed for today…”… I got the answer..but still I was blank at mind…I dint know what was I supposed to do next…I could see some cars parked in front of me…

I vaguely remembered getting out of a car and walking towards the building…With that thought, I just opened the first car and got inside and sat in the passenger seat…There was no driver…I thought…WHERE IS HE???...but WHO HE…I had no answer for that question…I was just blank…I looked around to see if anybody was around…

I saw someone waving at me from another car…Finally it dawned on me…that was my office mate…he was actioning as if WHAT ARE YOU DOING…and I realized…Gosh, I am in the wrong car…I rushed out and got into my colleague’s car…(thank god, the owner of the other car was not around...) I could hear my office mate asking me… “What was that??? What happened to you??? Why did you go and sit in that car..??? You didn’t even realize that you were getting into a white car instead of this Grey…??? You are CRAZY…."

I was shocked rather than embarrassed…I knew everything he said was absolutely true…WHY??? HOW COULD I???WHAT HAPPENED TO ME???WHERE WAS MY SENSES???...WAS I CRAZY???

I agreed with shame, that for some strange reason, I was lost…I just couldn’t understand what happened to me those few minutes…I was JUST LOST….Am I soooo careless….??? I don’t know…But I could hear my friend laughing and , “It is so easy for somebody to kidnap you…The kidnapper have to do nothing…You will just go and sit in his car and he can drive off…”

His words were going above my head…as I was still immersed in my thoughts…I was still trying hard to find an explanation for what happened few minutes back…I owe no explanation to anybody else…But ME…I needed an explanation…Was it some sort of Alzheimer symptom…??? Or was I just careless…Or was it a prank by the bright rays of the Sun…Or was it the Headache giving some Hallucination…I really don’t know…All I can recollect was a dark corridor and some locked glass doors…I don’t even remember seeing through the glass doors…I just felt as if one of those scary dreams were coming to life…

As I am sitting here right now with a bad head ache, in front of this computer monitor, jotting down my horrifying encounter, my mind is still wandering off…Still looking for a Logical Answer...Afterall…

WHAT HAPPENED TO ME…???

Not My Day...

The mobile phone just rang...Just a ring...Its a misscall…The signal to go down and wait near the main road for my colleague…(We go to office daily together…a small adjustment of pooling car…As a daily routine, he would give me a ring when he is just about to reach the main road… and then I will walk my way there and wait for him)…So I rushed out… It was really cold today…and I was freezing …with eager eyes I was tracking each passing vehicle for his car … the endless queue of vehicles…of all shapes and sizes… were just moving one behind another as if they were literally crawling…I hated the traffic…I hated sitting inside the car for endless hours waiting for the traffic to clear up and find ourselves moving…but the more I hated was waiting OUT in the road on a colddddddddddddd morning…without anything to warm me down…and then watch those snakes of vehicles crawling past me…The cold got into my head…I knew it…I was getting irritated…I was losing my temper…

As minutes ticked past, my irritation was rising…I knew, it wasn’t his fault…it was the damn traffic that was making him almost impossible to reach me…he might be just 10 steps from where I was...still it might take the most longest hour to cross even that path…I waited and waited…I was shivering…damn, I am wearing a skirt…I could feel all the pores on my skin standing up as if hearing the national anthem…was embarrassed, imagining IF ANYBODY noticed my almost chicken like stature…I really wanted to scream at my colleague…

Finally, there he is…I knew, I was going to lose it…My face was as if somebody just slapped me…I was angry…angry for no reason…I wanted to just shout at him…Somehow, I did exactly same…as soon as I got into the car FINALLY…I shooted out… “WHY CAN’T U LET ME KNOW IF U R GONNA BE LATE…I WOULD HAVE ATLEAST WAITED INSIDE THE BUILDING…” (I know, he is absolutely not the wrong person…its just that he was on the WRONG SIDE today…)…and then unexpected from him…he blasted back… “I CAN’T FLY…I WAS JUST THERE AND IT TOOK A HELL 20MTS TO REACH HERE..” (he pointed out to the roundabout which was just some 15-20 steps from where I was waiting…)…

I knew I was wrong…and I wasn’t stupid to not understand that HE WAS ALSO NOT IN THE BEST OF HIS MOODS… I guessed… “A fight with his wife..”…still my ego didn’t let me go off…I argued…

Me: Then from tomorrow, I am not going to come out of the house until atleast 10 minutes after the usual time…”

He: No need…Come only after I reach here…I will give u misscall after reaching here…I will wait here

I felt bad…he was hurt…and I hurt him more…but then, even I was having an off mood…

Me: U WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND…WAITING INSIDE THE CAR IN THE COMFORTS OF A HEATER AND STANDING OUT THERE IN THE COLD…

He: I told you…I will give u miss call only after I reach here…Come whenever u want…I will wait…

By now I was trying to calm down…

Me: That’s not needed…Just call me when you reach near that petrol station..I will come down then…

He: NO NEED…I WILL CALL U ONLY ONCE I REACH HERE…

My hyper tension came back...I got irritated again…

Me: OK, DO WHATEVER U WANT...

We completed the rest of the journey in complete SILENCE…

My thoughts:
Why did I get irritated for nothing…? Why should I outpour on him when I myself knew, he was not to be blamed? He was and is a big help for me in my commute to and fro office…and still??? Why is my mood bad today??? What is bugging me??? What am I actually upset about??? Was it because of the cold…was it because he was late…or was it something else…Something that is not clear to me now…Something that is deep down somewhere…Is this some sort of Sixth Sense telling me, that something worse is on the way…God knows…I just knew that something was wrong today and I knew that its not gonna be one of those cool days of my life…I wondered what more was in store for me today…

Just then a Shot of Pain scooted through my brain and I realized...Grr…HE IS BACK…This is absolutely NOT MY DAY…

He was and is one of my worst enemies…He is…

“THE HEADACHE…”