Flashback:
Something must be wrong!
I woke up in the morning (?) to find myself sweating, my bed was wet, the pillow was wet. Damn, was it my roommates playing pranks on me? Did they spill water all over my cot and forgot about it? Neither did I remember having a fever the previous day, in which case this sweat could be taken as a good omen of fever having a nice little send off in the night. Something must be wrong!
I looked outside, the Sun God was already up, I thought he had had a good night’s sleep, judging by how bright and active he was. Ah! I was supposed to reach office little early today, and it was already looking like noon outside. My watch showed just 6:30! Another prank? Or my watch just gave up trying to keep track of time? It doesn’t matter; I had already missed the meeting. Guys won’t be happy at all!
I thought, I can give some bullshit about having a jetlag from my previous day’s flight from Bangalore to Delhi! Anyway, I went to the bathroom, just was getting ready to brush my teeth – I was sweating again! I turned on the tap to wash my face, it felt hot. The door felt hot, the floor felt hot, anything I touched felt hot. I knew I had a fever; I should take a leave after all. I lathered up with soap, and before I picked up a mug of water, the lather was gone! It got washed away by itself?
Everybody was still sleeping! God, what’s wrong with these guys? Something was really wrong, I could sense that! I reached office. I was preoccupied with finding a reason to justify myself for being late. On the contrary, the office looked deserted; my watch was showing 8:00. I knew everybody must have gone for lunch. I had screwed up! Can’t somebody gift me Hermione’s time turner?
Well, somebody had gifted me in fact! People started coming in one by one, nobody looked like they came from lunch because I know how people look when they come from lunch – Most of them look like they were mildly poisoned, on Wednesdays non vegetarians look so miserable because the guy who served them made sure that they got the leg piece of the smallest chicken that sacrificed itself for the sake of humanity. My fat manager also came; the US guys were still online waiting for the conf call. It was going fine; I was on time!
I shared this experience with one of the veterans in the office; he gave me that small, paternal merciful smile and said ‘Welcome to Delhi’s summer son!’. After all I was alright, my watch was alright; But nothing else was, everything seemed to have a bad typhoid running high temperatures. Hmm.. I still can’t give up thinking that something is wrong, and it can be fixed. There is a small bug in the software God is using to run Delhi and its suburban areas. May be I can help him fix that. Or else I have resolved to write all my bogs in eclipse, till God hires somebody or fixes this by himself.
Present: It’s been a week now, and I don’t think God is making any progress. In the meantime, I continue to live in denial, and I still think something….. just a small thing has gone wrong, and he can fix it.