“I hate these bloody pigeons.” I screamed.
“What is wrong with you? Leave those poor birds alone.” My wife answered.
“Leave them alone? I would love to leave them alone! But they don’t leave us alone. They are all over the place, flapping away and making that monotonous noise – gutar goo, gutar goo…tchah. They don’t have brains worth a damn, and are always humping away…”
“Shh! Mind your tongue! The children…” Laxmi (my wife) hissed at me.
“Sorry…but these birds are a pain. Constantly building nests, hump…er…laying eggs, stink of pigeon everywhere. And they are so stupid – they are suicidal. Banging into glass panes, getting electrocuted in wires, getting cut up by kite strings…and just smell that stink! Some stupid pigeon must have died somewhere, and is rotting! Ugh!”

Rajan reached VT station after a long day at work and looked at the electronic signboard announcing the departure of the local train that would take him home.
“Panvel train after 7 minutes. Hmm. Enough to get a cup of coffee and a newspaper”
Lost in his thoughts, he went mechanically to his usual newspaper vendor, who gave him a “Mid Day” without being asked. Rajan fished out some coins from his pocket, gave it to the vendor, and walked on. He was disturbed in his train of thoughts by the vendor shouting after him, “Saar saar – fifty paisa more saar”
“Kya re? When I give you 3 rupees, you say 2.50 and now I am giving you 2,50, you want 3 rupees”
“Saar, 3 rupees on Wednesday Saar, baaki other days 2.50.”
“Why? What’s so special about today?”
“Extra section of classifieds saar” the vendor took his 50 paisa and ran off.

“Open wide”

That was exactly what I said to his wife yesterday.

I had been banging this dentist dude’s wife for the past few months now. I had met her on the Internet, and after a lot of chatting and cyber sex, had met her in person and screwed her. Man, she was hot!

Ever since she told me that her old man was a dentist, it gave me a major kick in life to come here and get drilled by him, before going and drilling his wife in his own home. A few drinks, a compliment, a trinket or two – that’s all it takes to get her down and dirty.

“One year off! Wow!”

I met Rajesh in a small hotel in Gangtok, when I had gone there for a short holiday. I had managed to wangle a couple of weeks holiday from the office and rushed off for a backpacking trip. I was modestly proud of my travel achievements in that trip -  last minute flight to Calcutta, staying in seedy backpacker accommodation in Calcutta, a sudden trip to Shantiniketan, Train to New Jalpaigudi, a stay in Gangtok, Sikkim…but this young man had knocked my trip into nothingness.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I had made Dipy’s acquaintance at a party, and we had got chummy after that. “Dipy” was Deepinder Singh Gehlot, and he was a private detective. I had always thought of private detectives as a pictured Sherlock Holmes – tall, thin, piercing eyes, etc, but Dipy was not like that at all. He was a most normal looking person – a clean shaven Sikh of medium height and built, clean shaven, a slightly receding hairline, reasonably fit…nothing extra ordinary.

I was between jobs at the time, and in no hurry to join another job due to a generous settlement. Dipy was anyway self employed, and his profession worked unorthodox timings as it is. Thus, we used to have ample opportunity to meet up and chat over beer and tandoori chicken.

Krishnan Iyer was intensely uncomfortable.

He was the vice president purchase of Bowden and Baker, the internationally famous fragrance suppliers. His whole career had been spent in the company of exotic and beautiful smells, perfecting one, twiddling the other, until he came out a particular smell he could sell to various companies, for making soaps, perfumes, oils, deodorants and such olfactory treats.