Prose before hos

"Can you please pick some candles? The ones that light like anaar. You know, sparklers."

"We don't get those candles here."

"You can just say you can't get it."

"Yahan cake nahi katteh, yahan Bihari katteh hai. It'd be a miracle if I get candles."

Off late, I have been finding myself in situations where I no longer remember the people who I come across in my phone book. At least 90% of those names are off Tinder, a space where I exist like chimera in undergraduate philosophy classes. People have heard of it, but don't quite understand the nature of its existence.

I digress, but most of these forgettable men have one thing in common- they're godforsaken boring and have done little to nothing to me to make me touch base, unblock, un-mute or whatever it is the reason they are not on my recently touched base with list. If I think about it, if you've held my attention for a little over three months, you should rank yourself god level interesting because I'm yet to see anyone cross the three month mark in my diary.

I am probably making this all about myself but that's not the point. I see men around me who have set ridiculously high standard for wit, charm and whatever it is that men ought to bring to the table. You learn at home.

My reason for blog hiatus has been my grandfather. Man gave us a fright with a heart failure, water in his lungs, high potassium levels and everything possible in between.

It's been over a week, he's home and sass still in tact.

Motherfucking sass.

Where do I even begin?

First day after having been shifted to the room, he looks at me and asks if I have been going to work, "No, I am not doing very well and I'm working from home."

"If you don't dress proper, how on Earth do you intend on keeping well?"

Oxygen pipe in, multiple cannula marks and sarcasm on fleek.

All of yesterday, I spent watching a shit film from the nought with him while he continued to make remarks on all and sundry- from the heartthrob of the lead to the person who produced and even the ones who interrupted- cricketer who recently got married.

I woke up this afternoon after a night of heavy debauchery (bread, waffles, jam, butter, eggs and cigarette- shit) and walked to his room disgruntled. That used to be a ritual until I started this wretched job, which he began enquiring about the minute I entered.

"How's your job?"

"Crap. How else."

"How's your boss?"

"Crap. How else."

"You have a pensionable job. Enjoy it."

I stopped rubbing my eyes and looked at my mom, seated across the room. Was he hallucinating again?

All that time he spent in the ICU, he had something called the ICU Psychosis wherein the person is delirious and has no sense of space and time. They mess situations and and events and let their imagination play havoc to their rational abilities.

"Er, no. I don't have a pensionable job. I barely make any money."

"What's wrong with you? You walk in late, you come home early. You also take work from home when you're sick and I'm sick and complain about the job all the time. They're paying you for surviving, not for working. Jobs are where they pay you for hard work not for bullshitting. You get pension for bullshit which is what you're getting."


Owned.

If that wasn't it, as prologue I can throw some more-

"You can't hear because you're not wearing socks."

"You have been wearing socks yet you landed up in the ICU. How about that?"

"How about you wait until you're 83 and write me a letter telling me about yourself then? We can take stock of things at that point."