My much deserved state of somnolence was rudely disturbed by the screaming and shouting of one of the fourteen people in the compartment. I thought someone had fallen off, and I woke up with a start, only to notice that this was how they woke each other up.

I wish to dear God that I had a shotgun that time. I’d have done a Kurt Cobain on myself.

I figured that I’d wait it out until they were done waking each other up so that noise levels would reduce, and I could go back to sleep, but they spoke so loudly that, were they in Necropolis, it would cease to remain so, with the dead waking up thanks to their irritatingly loud decibel levels.

I was, obviously thinking of savouring this experience so I could blog about it later, but I was soon getting to be at my wit’s end.

The train was late, and these fat ovesttuffed ladies and their uncontrollable children and teenagers were wreaking havoc, and even the loudest music on my ipod couldn’t drown them out.

There was no way I could go back to sleep even if I were injected with morphine, and so I stepped down from my lofty berth.

The side-upper berth was allocated to me since I was a waitlisted traveller, and those are the crappiest berths available on trains. They are so claustrophobic that they’d make the individual capsule in Japanese hotels look like rooms in the Leela Palace Hotel.

However, once I stepped down to sit at one of those window seats that I was rightfully supposed to sit at, five of those kids came and sat there, a couple of them barely old enough to read trying to flip through my book and being playful when I wasn’t in the best of moods.

A couple of those kids who were in their early teens were so fat that I thought twice before giving them dirty looks, lest they decided to punch me, in which case I’d have had a broken jaw in the very least.

I finally sought refuge at the doorway, where I could stand and view the ever changing landscape as the wind blew into my already unkempt hair, with music playing in my ears, and I was at peace temporarily.

Further attempts to go back up and sleep on the berth were futile, and I think that we need to torture prisoners using the sleep deprivation technique by putting them up with huge Marwadi families travelling on trains.

It was now that the train stopped at Guntakal, and I was still sleepless and getting more irritable by the minute, which was when I was inspired to come up with the title for this series of posts.

As the family finished breakfast and settled down, I thought it was over and I could read / sleep / sit silently and contemplate the passing scenery in peace while listening to music, but alas, my reverie was disturbed by the loud noises of eunuchs clapping.

As soon as they saw me, they knew instinctively that I was an easy target, and they hounded me for money. I was glad to partake with small change, but as the three of them present chose to gang up on me, I had no option but to shout and make a run for it in the compartment, shouting out loudly that I was a student and that I *actually* had no monies.

But eunuchs with crazy eyes who want money from ipod toting, shorts wearing, decent looking gentlemen would hardly care, and I think I escaped a near death traumatic experience thanks to my wailing like a banshee to get away from them. Such joy.

It was two hours past the time of arrival when the train arrived finally in Mysore, and I was thankful to have gotten back to where I once belonged.

I wish this had a more melodramatic ending, but life isn’t always a chick-flick, you see.

Now, I’ve suddenly noticed that my showcase is threadbare, save for the obligatory mini-idols of a few Gods, and of course, my public books.

The funda of public books is particularly interesting, and I am sure quite a few people follow it. I hate lending out books, and there are very few people I wouldn’t mind giving out my books to. I have no qualms in saying this when some people have wanted to borrow books from me, but the major look of pain which I sometimes got, which seemed akin to my having shot them in their leg with a shotgun was something I didn’t really want to put up with.

So I have, since April 2007 when I moved into this house, split my bookshelf into the public and the private. The former rests in the showcase in my hall (which also serves as my drawing room, TV room, dining room, guest bedroom and so on), and contains books that I’m ok with losing. They include all my magazines, some random books, and mostly textbooks, which give any visitor who doesn’t know me the impression that I am nerdier than I look.

So, as I was mentioning, my showcase looks quite sparse, and I wanted to put in some interesting stuff into it (that was also cheap). So, I had been to McDonalds in October, and I noticed that they’d be giving out Star Wars toys with their happy meals, and I wanted a couple. However, they were scheduled to be given three weeks later, and hence I decided to wait.

Life, the universe and everything made me forget about the Star Wars toys, and when I eventually got around to going to McDonalds, they had stocked some arbit new set of toys.

Dear Reader, if you are connected in some way to anyone who works in McDonalds, or have some sort of contact, would it be possible for you to help me scrounge some of those Star Wars toys for my showcase, please? I am willing to pay good money for them.

In return, I promise to treat you. The treat will be proportionate to the number + variety of the Star Wars toys you can help me lay my hands on!

KTHX.

It is perfectly normal to be lazy, but somehow it is not looked upon as a desirable trait when you’re a student or an employee. An employer can afford to be lazy, on the other hand, simply by virtue of being able to write his own performance review and not having extraneous factors to point fingers towards, in case of facing any problems.

There have been times when I have wanted to take days off work, simply because I have accumulated leave and I’ve wanted to bask in the glory of nothingness, and this ‘have leave, will take’ policy has, in all probability, been put into use by other enlightened souls as well. However, I’d still have to justify it with having to finish personal work or something or the other that seems innocuous and raises no eyebrows.

However, if laziness is more accepted in our society, and the quality of sloth is removed from the list of seven sins (why have seven sins anyway, given that six would be cooler, with 666 and all that), I could as well say, “I’m feeling too lazy, and so I don’t want to show up for work / do whatever activity” and not have people look at me like I’ve just killed Bambi with a shotgun.

The Indian Medical Association should officially include laziness as a condition that can be used by people to excuse themselves from work, much like diarrohea, fever or a sprained neck. With official endorsement, offices, schools and colleges, and other places where one would like to turn away from due to the affliction of sloth would be more understanding of our total and absolute lack of inclination to go there sometimes.

This would ensure that I would be able to fill up “I’m feeling lazy” in the column where I am applying for leave, instead of having to fill up random mendacious stuff like “neighbour’s son’s thread ceremony” or “plumbing maintenance of house”. Taking time off for laziness would, in turn, foster better working relationships and as a result, would ensure that the employee works harder when at the office.