Blah Blah Blah ...

Being an IT professional, I consider myself lucky if I get a Saturday or Sunday for myself. Weekend normally means sitting home and working on my personal computer. But today it was one of those "rare" Sundays where I had thought of doing something useful - reading the autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr or cleaning up my car. But alas! I wasted my time in a place I shouldn't have been, listening to stuff I didn't have to, and trying to be nice to people when I knew I wasn't nice.

The occasion was the inauguration of a building by a prominent personality from the judiciary. The chief guest was a renowned judicial activist, a man worthy of praise and a very humble individual. Yet, I couldn't appreciate any of these qualities, as i sat hungry and fuming on a hot Sunday.

I had brought my car since mother had to bring the harmonium to render a prayer at the beginning of the program. I should have fled at the end of the prayer. I got a bit curious and made the mistake of staying back a little longer. By then, people had trooped in and I found half-a-dozen cars blocking the pathway of my parked car.

I was forced to sit and listen as the panel of guests took turns in giving a "biographical account" of each others lives. The speech had so much of data that many in the audience, it appeared, were as perplexed as me. I have had similar experience in school, wherein teachers rammed in as much information as possible in the shortest possible time. This was done with the fond hope that students would be able to remember at least part of lessons taught to them.

In this case too, I experienced similar result of this "mental exertion"- I began to nod off. Not wanting to embarrass the chief guest and my mom, I and my wife (who had unwittingly accompanied me) made our way out of the hall.

But the afternoon heat was so relentless that I felt like a fish being friend in oil. I circumnavigated the building as many times as possible; woke up friends from their afternoon siesta to tell them I am bored, sent silly SIMS to everybody on my phone book list; tried playing nanny to some of the young kids running loose around the premises.

Yet, the monologue went on... Just as I was about to leave the place to have my lunch at a hotel, lunch was served. Never have I been so ravenously hungry. I hogged like a pig, merely shaking my head to everything that my wife said. The words just bounced off my ears.

Finally I gave up, and I left home with my dad, who had come there to have lunch with us. I regret going there - what a waste of time!!