Life, Laughter and Everything Else

The first guy handled the machine, which was one of those bulky yet somewhat cool contraptions you saw cleaners in shopping centres use to sweep and mop the floor. He held the two handles by the side while it rotated in small circular motions on the marble floor without stop, making it a shade shinier with each rotation. The second guy, well, he held the door open while the first one completed the task, which was interesting because I had before seen lift doors held open by slotting a thick folded paper strategically between the doors. But for some reason, that did not seem applicable for this lift. Then there was the last guy, obviously the supervisor, given his skin tone was a lot lighter than the other two, who kept barking out instructions. Three guys, just to polish a marble floor about 2 metres by 2 metres. This was the sight that greeted me when I came back home after a year long stay in the US, which involved a project to do more work with less people ie productivity improvem...

"How about I get married?" "Are you serious?" "Yea" "No really. If you are serious, I can start looking for one" "Uhh....Nah. I was just kidding" After a while, she stopped asking me if I were serious. Instead, she would laugh it off every time I suggested it, which was the original intention of my question. For me it was just comic relief, this idea of marriage that parents back in India would pester their children with once they reached just about where I was right now; young, working with a steady income and of totally no use at home. Though when she did ask me if I was serious, I do remember feeling a palpitation in my heart, the kind one gets when having to make a yuge decision (#trump2016 #makeamericagreatagain), knowing very well that she, along with an army of aunts, waited for my green light to start searching for a bride for the most promising of their nephews. A NRI (non residential Indian used to refer to the ...

Tall, skinny, unshaven, perhaps a shade darker and skin more weather beaten due to the long hours of physical labour out in the sun. Other than that, there was not a lot in in physique or appearance that separated me from him. In dressing, I in my shorts better reflected the dressing trends of the local, while he was almost always in a striped long sleeve shirt, tucked out over jeans and slippers, though of late I had noted that his taste was switching to more fashionable sneakers. When I lifted my eyes up from my book on my long commute and looked up at him, there was be a momentary eye contact. I pretended to glance around the whole train, as if taking stock of a situation, as if my reason for my eyes happening to land on him was part of an intended routine. Secretly, I was afraid, that others would mistake me for him, the dark skinned, odorous, famished foreigner who had journeyed hundreds of miles to eke out a living doing hard labour. I was more dignified than that. Was I not?...