Just Another Something in Shimla

Perhaps, this is an anecdote I cannot but help blurting out. It has this intuitive charm to it , the kind that puts a sub conscious smile on my face every time I tend to recall it.

So, alongside the usual stroll that I had already started getting used to, here on mall road in Shimla, I thought of messaging my newly found female accomplice , just to know her whereabouts. A little apprehensive as I was, I decided to establish myself on a clean green bench on the side of the road, and think of something rather intriguing to write about.

As my mind dwindled between the usual Hi , Hey, Hello, Wassup to choose from , for the perfect start , a little something dawned on me , and eventually, I zeroed upon a cheeky but unconventional ''Oye girlfriend '' to start off, reminiscent of a little joke I shared with her a day before.

It was hardly perturbing , when a little boy, adorning that innocent glee and hair,well oiled and neatly combed, disrupted me for a second and asked me to shift a bit. As courteously as I could , I reduced myself to the paltry one fifth part of the bench , while the boy and his obnoxiously fat mother occupied the rest four-fifth. As the boy sat next to me , sipping his fountain coke with a spluttering sound, I , more by facial conjectures, expressed my dissatisfaction at such a distraction , but it didn't really restrain him from making that sound, perhaps he enjoyed the sound much more than the coke . I can say that because he kept making that sound even after the last drop of coke in his wrinkled plastic glass was exhausted.

As I strived to put in a few words, the little menace kept peeping into my phone screen . May be he's just curious about the apparatus, I assured myself and I let him be. Now, comes the funny part.

Having peeped into my message for a while , he shrugged a shoulder and whispered to his mother : '' Mummy ! Dekho yeh bhaiya hai naa, yeh apni girlfriend ko sms kar rhe hain. '' It was intended to be a whisper, but a good five people around us, including me, could hear it.

With immediate horror on her face, his mother realised the faux pas that her son had put us both in. Half embarrassed and almost apologetically she said to me:'' Bada naughty bachha hai yeh ! ''.

Unaware of social customs , the boy ventured once again to defend his statement , but before he could , his mother volunteered to literally shut his mouth up. As she raised a hand to do so , I replied : It's okay aunty, he's right, girlfriend ko hi sms kar rha hoon. ''

So, as and when I completed writing and sending the message, I moved ahead with my stroll on mall road, with that maniacal smile on my face , wondering how exciting it would be to put this incidence into words.