A Mercurial Affair
Chapter 1
I mean, it could be some new-fangled, all-inclusive, post-modern, politically-correct bullshit, but come on, man, don't do this to me in the morning. I thought that's why they collected demographic data, so they could target information at you. So get my horoscope right, dammit. The man of my dreams will cross my path today - my left toe. I was full of no coffee, the commute had been terrible, the president had had nothing new to say (again), one of the stones from my Navratna ring was missing, and now this. They had to go get my gender and my sexual preferences all mixed up.
I filed an online complaint, expressing my utter disdain for their incompetence, vowing never to use any of their services again, so don't bother with any of the cross-sell/up-sell bullshit either, promising to report them to ISAR - Société Internationale de Recherche Astrologique, and just to throw them off, requesting to be removed from the “Anti-Aging Products” SPAM list, which I knew wasn't theirs because my friend James Chen ran that little (but lucrative) scam out of his fortune-cookie business-front in Beijing.
Before I could get my coffee, a repeat bout of great mental anguish hit me, caused by the unexpected, saccharine-sweet email from the very same charlatans, sent with as much alacrity as their auto-responder could muster, telling me that they were so glad to have me as their customer they would dance naked on the streets, and that they were sure my problem was nothing really, and that they were positive it would resolve itself in about 24 business hours, and that meanwhile, wouldn't I like to visit their online dating service, where two hundred million women, all of them blonde, were waiting patiently for someone exactly like me. I could barely type, my hands were shaking with so much consternation, I had to get my 5-caster Aeron PostureFit Advanced Back Support chair out of the way, sit down in Vajrasana in the remaining 2 square feet of my cubicle, and take 8 Ujjayi breaths, followed by 14 Bhastrikas, before I felt calm return. Three Product Management-types were looking at me in amazement when I opened my eyes, but they went away, shaking their heads in wonder, when I gave them a cheerful thumbs-up.
“Hello Good Morning Naresh How Are You Doing Today Good To See You Have A Good Day Take Care See You Bye.” That was Kashyap, the new QA guy, walking out of the break-room with all the doughnuts. He always spoke in Capitalese, and in abundance. I liked him. Always cheered you up. It was the consistency thing, I realized. It didn't matter if it was Winter or Prince's Birthday or Election Day, he always pretty much said the same things. He was the one constant in my life. He had also taken the last of the coffee, so I started a new brew.
Clint walked in, and pretended not to see me, heading straight for the coffee while it was still brewing, would you believe his insolence, but I preempted him, with one loud and extremely caustic clearing of the throat.
“Hey, what's going on? Fresh pot, eh?”, he asked, with his feigned exuberance, and slightly off-center goatee, looking neither very excited about the coffee nor too expectant about what I could tell him about the goings-on.
I gave him the cheerful thumbs-up with my coffee-mug hand and continued to scratch my balls through my left pocket, stopping only when I remembered my disfigured ring. That brought me right back to reality. Gone was the good cheer. I needed my ninth stone, like Frodo needed to get to Mordor. [And what's up with that anyway? I mean, I'd read all the books, and the movies were spectacular, but why were there like 20 rings? 4, or even some other power of 2 would've been cool, but 20? That was a bit much, and awfully lame of Tolkien, I thought.
So anyway, I needed to get my ring fixed, because, well, because I was afraid bad luck would befall me if I didn't, and because Guruji would be like totally pissed-off if he found out, and even though Guruji lived in Calcutta, he had his weirding ways, and the latest in wireless technology. Besides, I needed something to do, anyway.] So, back in my cube, sipping my French Roast, I looked for an Indian astrologer with a web-presence in the greater San Francisco metropolitan area. First order of things, I needed to figure out which stone was missing.
Chapter 2
Mr. Bob Pandit is sitting at his desk, smoking Marlboro Ultra Lights, in a chair that is so un-ergonomic looking, I almost feel sorry for it. Mr. Pandit is delighted to see me and waves me a chair that is now making me feel sorry for me.
He drops the cigarette on the floor, and without looking down, swivels his foot around cursorily, extinguishing it, or so we both would like to think.
“Mr. Naresh. Good to shee you. Tea.”
I can see that Mr. Pandit is very learned. Because he can see the future and the past and all the tenses in-between, he has no need for questions.
“No, thank you. I just had coffee. But you should really try the 5-caster Aeron PostureFits - they're great.”
“Pardon.”
“Chairs. They're chairs, and really good for your back too. But then, you smoke. Ha, ha.”
“Yesh, yesh. But I am now shmoking Ultra Lights only.”
“That is very good. Very good.”
“Sho. What can I do for you.”
“I have this Navratna ring”, extending my right hand for him to kiss. “Except it's not a Navratna anymore. One of the stones fell out. Ha, ha.”
“Which one.”
“I don't know. That's why I'm here.”
“Ha, ha.”
Mr. Pandit produces a magnifying lens from a drawer in the desk. I take my ring off, and give it to him. Through the lens, he examines the ring, and his face goes through the full spectrum of emotions, including concentration, interest, disgust, contempt and lust before finally settling on contentment.
“Mercury”, he says, after the requisite delay that must precede any weighty decision, and he replaces the lens in its rightful drawer, and closes the drawer with a finality that signifies that his decision is not to be questioned.
“Ah. I thought it was Jupiter.”
“Come back on Thurshday.” He smiles.
“Mercury? Really?”
His smile does not falter.
“Right. Thanks. Um. How much will it be?”
“Depends on the shtone. Mercury can be expenshive. Come back on Thurshday.” He is practically beaming now. I don't know if he's pleased with his bit of analysis or if he's in anticipation of extraordinarily large sums of money, but in any case, my chair is getting really uncomfortable, and so, bereft of my ring temporarily, I take my leave.
Chapter 3
The next two days were reasonably boring. An email from the online dating service brought with it a brief period of excitement, but the respondent turned out to be a non-practicing Buddhist transvestite who'd been banned from Burning Man. The possibilities were interesting, but I couldn't figure out what we'd say if someone asked us where we had met, and so I graciously declined the overture.
Thursday, I went to get my ring back. Mr. Pandit, it turns out, had to make a personal trip to Guerneville and back, in order to procure the stone, and seeing as how expensive Mercury had become these days, not to mention gas-prices, we settled at $85, after I negotiated a 15% discount in addition to sharing a little Shiva that Mr. Pandit had also managed to procure in Guerneville.
Exactly half-way through, we dropped the ring into the hookah, and had a fine time fishing it out. It came out glistening, Mercury winking, and Jupiter flirting. As I was wiping the thing dry with my T-shirt, Mr. Pandit noting that my belly hair was like Austin Powers’, the most incredibly gorgeous woman the two of us had ever seen, popped-out of the ring. She was stark naked.
Mr. Pandit said it all, very simply. “Yesh”, he said. I concurred whole-heartedly. “Yes”, I said.
“I am the Genie of this ring, and you may ask of me one wish, and I will grant it”, Jenny said.
Mr. Pandit was still going “Yesh”, so I asked: “Who gets to make the wish, O Beautiful Jenny?”
“That is not my concern, little boy. I am the keeper of a wish, and anyone may ask it of me, and I will grant that wish. And, by the way, my name is Genie, not Jenny.”
“May I call you Jenny? It's just that I've had this rather distasteful email correspondence with this transvestite who just wouldn't understand that I was not into Buddhists, and well, you look a heck of a lot more like a Jenny than a Genie.”
“Very well, little boy. Is that your wish?”
“Hell no, that's not his wish, bitch! I mean, O Genie.” Mr. Pandit, thank his soul, was quicker on his feet, when under the influence of gorgeous women who grant wishes. “No, no, no, darling. Wait. I will give you a wish.”
“You will give me a wish? Why don't you give me one of your Ultra Lights instead?”
“What I mean is, I will ashk for the wish. I didn’t know you shmoked. Have shome Shiva.”
“I don't smoke that from whence I came. I’ll take the cigarette. Thanks.” As she lit up, Jenny became even more gorgeous. A divine glow surrounded her, as if emanating from within her, and converging into the red tip of her cigarette. “You have about a minute left to decide.”
“Shays who? Why only 1 minute? What if we can't decide?” Mr. Pandit had clearly not foreseen this, for he was breaking voice and talking in questions. I gazed at him in awe for this rare display of the opposite of clairvoyance, but just for a few seconds. Mr. Pandit's roots were deeply shaken. Jenny, meanwhile, was inhaling deeply. I was deep in thought myself.
“I've got it”, I said!
“30 seconds. Then I go poof.”
“I wish for another ring with a wish-granting Genie with no time-limit. Also, the Genie should be as beautiful as you, O Jenny. And the Genie should grant 20 wishes, instead of 1. Yes, that is my wish.” Mr. Pandit was in visible approval.
“Very well. Here you go. And here I go. Good-bye, little boy. Thanks for the cigarette, Mr. Pandit!” And she was gone. And poof, there was another ring.
To this day, I wear that ring. (Mr. Pandit has the original.) To this day, I haven't been able to pop-out the Genie, or whatever the technical term for that is. The bitch lied. That's Mr. Pandit's explanation anyway. He thinks a cigarette-smoking Genie is a wayward, wanton Genie, and that she had had no wish-granting power anyway. She just wanted to bum a cigarette. Me, I think there's a Genie in the ring somewhere. I just don't know how to get her out.
Chapter 1
I mean, it could be some new-fangled, all-inclusive, post-modern, politically-correct bullshit, but come on, man, don't do this to me in the morning. I thought that's why they collected demographic data, so they could target information at you. So get my horoscope right, dammit. The man of my dreams will cross my path today - my left toe. I was full of no coffee, the commute had been terrible, the president had had nothing new to say (again), one of the stones from my Navratna ring was missing, and now this. They had to go get my gender and my sexual preferences all mixed up.
I filed an online complaint, expressing my utter disdain for their incompetence, vowing never to use any of their services again, so don't bother with any of the cross-sell/up-sell bullshit either, promising to report them to ISAR - Société Internationale de Recherche Astrologique, and just to throw them off, requesting to be removed from the “Anti-Aging Products” SPAM list, which I knew wasn't theirs because my friend James Chen ran that little (but lucrative) scam out of his fortune-cookie business-front in Beijing.
Before I could get my coffee, a repeat bout of great mental anguish hit me, caused by the unexpected, saccharine-sweet email from the very same charlatans, sent with as much alacrity as their auto-responder could muster, telling me that they were so glad to have me as their customer they would dance naked on the streets, and that they were sure my problem was nothing really, and that they were positive it would resolve itself in about 24 business hours, and that meanwhile, wouldn't I like to visit their online dating service, where two hundred million women, all of them blonde, were waiting patiently for someone exactly like me. I could barely type, my hands were shaking with so much consternation, I had to get my 5-caster Aeron PostureFit Advanced Back Support chair out of the way, sit down in Vajrasana in the remaining 2 square feet of my cubicle, and take 8 Ujjayi breaths, followed by 14 Bhastrikas, before I felt calm return. Three Product Management-types were looking at me in amazement when I opened my eyes, but they went away, shaking their heads in wonder, when I gave them a cheerful thumbs-up.
“Hello Good Morning Naresh How Are You Doing Today Good To See You Have A Good Day Take Care See You Bye.” That was Kashyap, the new QA guy, walking out of the break-room with all the doughnuts. He always spoke in Capitalese, and in abundance. I liked him. Always cheered you up. It was the consistency thing, I realized. It didn't matter if it was Winter or Prince's Birthday or Election Day, he always pretty much said the same things. He was the one constant in my life. He had also taken the last of the coffee, so I started a new brew.
Clint walked in, and pretended not to see me, heading straight for the coffee while it was still brewing, would you believe his insolence, but I preempted him, with one loud and extremely caustic clearing of the throat.
“Hey, what's going on? Fresh pot, eh?”, he asked, with his feigned exuberance, and slightly off-center goatee, looking neither very excited about the coffee nor too expectant about what I could tell him about the goings-on.
I gave him the cheerful thumbs-up with my coffee-mug hand and continued to scratch my balls through my left pocket, stopping only when I remembered my disfigured ring. That brought me right back to reality. Gone was the good cheer. I needed my ninth stone, like Frodo needed to get to Mordor. [And what's up with that anyway? I mean, I'd read all the books, and the movies were spectacular, but why were there like 20 rings? 4, or even some other power of 2 would've been cool, but 20? That was a bit much, and awfully lame of Tolkien, I thought.
So anyway, I needed to get my ring fixed, because, well, because I was afraid bad luck would befall me if I didn't, and because Guruji would be like totally pissed-off if he found out, and even though Guruji lived in Calcutta, he had his weirding ways, and the latest in wireless technology. Besides, I needed something to do, anyway.] So, back in my cube, sipping my French Roast, I looked for an Indian astrologer with a web-presence in the greater San Francisco metropolitan area. First order of things, I needed to figure out which stone was missing.
Chapter 2
Mr. Bob Pandit is sitting at his desk, smoking Marlboro Ultra Lights, in a chair that is so un-ergonomic looking, I almost feel sorry for it. Mr. Pandit is delighted to see me and waves me a chair that is now making me feel sorry for me.
He drops the cigarette on the floor, and without looking down, swivels his foot around cursorily, extinguishing it, or so we both would like to think.
“Mr. Naresh. Good to shee you. Tea.”
I can see that Mr. Pandit is very learned. Because he can see the future and the past and all the tenses in-between, he has no need for questions.
“No, thank you. I just had coffee. But you should really try the 5-caster Aeron PostureFits - they're great.”
“Pardon.”
“Chairs. They're chairs, and really good for your back too. But then, you smoke. Ha, ha.”
“Yesh, yesh. But I am now shmoking Ultra Lights only.”
“That is very good. Very good.”
“Sho. What can I do for you.”
“I have this Navratna ring”, extending my right hand for him to kiss. “Except it's not a Navratna anymore. One of the stones fell out. Ha, ha.”
“Which one.”
“I don't know. That's why I'm here.”
“Ha, ha.”
Mr. Pandit produces a magnifying lens from a drawer in the desk. I take my ring off, and give it to him. Through the lens, he examines the ring, and his face goes through the full spectrum of emotions, including concentration, interest, disgust, contempt and lust before finally settling on contentment.
“Mercury”, he says, after the requisite delay that must precede any weighty decision, and he replaces the lens in its rightful drawer, and closes the drawer with a finality that signifies that his decision is not to be questioned.
“Ah. I thought it was Jupiter.”
“Come back on Thurshday.” He smiles.
“Mercury? Really?”
His smile does not falter.
“Right. Thanks. Um. How much will it be?”
“Depends on the shtone. Mercury can be expenshive. Come back on Thurshday.” He is practically beaming now. I don't know if he's pleased with his bit of analysis or if he's in anticipation of extraordinarily large sums of money, but in any case, my chair is getting really uncomfortable, and so, bereft of my ring temporarily, I take my leave.
Chapter 3
The next two days were reasonably boring. An email from the online dating service brought with it a brief period of excitement, but the respondent turned out to be a non-practicing Buddhist transvestite who'd been banned from Burning Man. The possibilities were interesting, but I couldn't figure out what we'd say if someone asked us where we had met, and so I graciously declined the overture.
Thursday, I went to get my ring back. Mr. Pandit, it turns out, had to make a personal trip to Guerneville and back, in order to procure the stone, and seeing as how expensive Mercury had become these days, not to mention gas-prices, we settled at $85, after I negotiated a 15% discount in addition to sharing a little Shiva that Mr. Pandit had also managed to procure in Guerneville.
Exactly half-way through, we dropped the ring into the hookah, and had a fine time fishing it out. It came out glistening, Mercury winking, and Jupiter flirting. As I was wiping the thing dry with my T-shirt, Mr. Pandit noting that my belly hair was like Austin Powers’, the most incredibly gorgeous woman the two of us had ever seen, popped-out of the ring. She was stark naked.
Mr. Pandit said it all, very simply. “Yesh”, he said. I concurred whole-heartedly. “Yes”, I said.
“I am the Genie of this ring, and you may ask of me one wish, and I will grant it”, Jenny said.
Mr. Pandit was still going “Yesh”, so I asked: “Who gets to make the wish, O Beautiful Jenny?”
“That is not my concern, little boy. I am the keeper of a wish, and anyone may ask it of me, and I will grant that wish. And, by the way, my name is Genie, not Jenny.”
“May I call you Jenny? It's just that I've had this rather distasteful email correspondence with this transvestite who just wouldn't understand that I was not into Buddhists, and well, you look a heck of a lot more like a Jenny than a Genie.”
“Very well, little boy. Is that your wish?”
“Hell no, that's not his wish, bitch! I mean, O Genie.” Mr. Pandit, thank his soul, was quicker on his feet, when under the influence of gorgeous women who grant wishes. “No, no, no, darling. Wait. I will give you a wish.”
“You will give me a wish? Why don't you give me one of your Ultra Lights instead?”
“What I mean is, I will ashk for the wish. I didn’t know you shmoked. Have shome Shiva.”
“I don't smoke that from whence I came. I’ll take the cigarette. Thanks.” As she lit up, Jenny became even more gorgeous. A divine glow surrounded her, as if emanating from within her, and converging into the red tip of her cigarette. “You have about a minute left to decide.”
“Shays who? Why only 1 minute? What if we can't decide?” Mr. Pandit had clearly not foreseen this, for he was breaking voice and talking in questions. I gazed at him in awe for this rare display of the opposite of clairvoyance, but just for a few seconds. Mr. Pandit's roots were deeply shaken. Jenny, meanwhile, was inhaling deeply. I was deep in thought myself.
“I've got it”, I said!
“30 seconds. Then I go poof.”
“I wish for another ring with a wish-granting Genie with no time-limit. Also, the Genie should be as beautiful as you, O Jenny. And the Genie should grant 20 wishes, instead of 1. Yes, that is my wish.” Mr. Pandit was in visible approval.
“Very well. Here you go. And here I go. Good-bye, little boy. Thanks for the cigarette, Mr. Pandit!” And she was gone. And poof, there was another ring.
To this day, I wear that ring. (Mr. Pandit has the original.) To this day, I haven't been able to pop-out the Genie, or whatever the technical term for that is. The bitch lied. That's Mr. Pandit's explanation anyway. He thinks a cigarette-smoking Genie is a wayward, wanton Genie, and that she had had no wish-granting power anyway. She just wanted to bum a cigarette. Me, I think there's a Genie in the ring somewhere. I just don't know how to get her out.
posted at 1:14 AM
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