WATER

‘Earth is the water planet, it looks blue from the deep space’ my friend was telling me with great curiosity, reciting whatever she heard & seen on the Discovery Channel last night. While we both together were filling carefully every drop of water trickling down from the rusted municipal water pipeline behind our respective homes at four O’clock in the early morning. Our husbands had taken great trouble in digging the soil below the ‘T’ opening the supply line which should otherwise carry our share of water inside our home. But it doesn’t in eight out of twelve months of the year, during rainy season as such we can not go out to collect the trickle since rain god is blessing us with his showers which we collect before they meet mother earth.

I’d made it very clear to my father that I must not be married in the place where water is scarce. I don’t mind if my husband earns less but can’t compromise with less water than requirement. Bowing to my persistence my father had taken me to my would be husbands’ house to make it clear that the home is delivered with continuous water supply. I married my husband despite he was not all that great looking yet his main plus point was his home was water surplus though money wasn’t. In the first year of our marriage itself the ward was rearranged. During the municipal elections the party which came to power our new corporator elected belong to that party. So all the water went to our adjutant ward which was lead by the independent corporate. How on earth any ruling party can afford to deprive of anything of independent supporting corporator? Since then we’ve water just enough to drink daily, just enough to take our bath on weekly, just enough to wash our cloths monthly & just …. While I traveled all those days & years in memory lane & mine & all my friends’ husbands were sleeping tight with our kids perhaps those corporators too.

‘Why water is so scarce to us?’ I innocently asked my ever paper reading or TV watching husband, if he is at home. He smiled in his moustache, I thought he found my question rather amusing but he didn’t open his same moustache covered lip for next two minutes. I gauged he was reading something more amusing in the paper & my question never fell on his ears. ‘But see, XXX was telling me her nephew gets enough water even to take bath daily, water their garden, wash their vehicles even every morning & evening they wet their surrounding with pressured water hose’ I persisted while holding his hand & trying to snatch his remote attention. ‘Look you are worried of water for your home I’m reading & worried about the whole state of Tamilnadu. Their water has caught fire & you ….’ He chose to keep mum & made me sink in shame. My husband is worried of the whole state whilst I was disturbing him of our home of nine hundred square feet carpet area. ‘Look at this, the Sardar Sarovar in Gujarat, shifting manufacturing units due to scarcity of water, ….’ He just kept talking unstoppable while I’d to rush inside to clear my doubt on paying heed to kitchen noise of perhaps my daughter tumbled her full filled glass of the same precious water.

‘Don’t worry sweetheart, I registered our grievances with the water supply department & yes due to global warming just in a century or two the polar ice caps are going to melt, so any way we are bound to get ample water’. He held me close & tight in his arms that night typical of any husband since that is when they remember their wives & talk as sweet as any body from male kingdom can. Same with wives too, it is their turn to yield most from otherwise non yielding or non listening husbands. To reduce my labour in the early hours daily, he promised me to get a quarter hp water pump.

I saw a very nice & soothing dream that night I swear! We’d water & plenty of water. All our vessels were filled, I just didn’t pay attention even my daughter fell her glass full of water on the ground. I was seen watering our small kitchen-garden & my husband was washing his scooter with the water hose singing his favorite film song.

At the destined time early in the morning I got up. Perhaps my body clock too got synchronized with the water supply departments’ valve man timing. Again to collect the trickle from the rusted municipal pipeline. I yelled at my early morning friend who was doing her early morning ritual as I was. ‘My husband has written to water supply department for proper water supplies & you know what, the polar ice caps….

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

ON LIFE

‘Let us speak something on life!’, I was shocked to hear this as I never heard such words from mouth of a person who’d otherwise open it to eat spicy, hot & junk food, drink water, hot steaming tea & cold drink which is no less hazardous than insecticides, snore to sleep happily & kill others’ sleep, read aloud something written only on hotel menu card & speak sheer ‘humbug’. Even if Miss World is passing by us while we’re enjoying our ‘onion-bhajia’ at Anand Bhuvan he’d concentrate on the bhajia, to hell will Miss World. Or for him ‘living’ is eating right & sleeping tight. Five minutes before the exams when everybody is mugging up the most important answers, praying respective gods & goddess to seek their blessings, rehearsing copy pulling from their various hide-outs etc. This guy would be invariably seen at the college canteen sipping his tea at ease as if whole day is free ahead. Well, if he passes every time in the exams then no problem but he’s studying to make schools, colleges, & universities rich by paying fees for his never ending supplementary exams. He’d vowed to not to pass in first attempt in any paper at any cost & he’s unruffled by any results. Perhaps God has forgotten to embed ‘tension wrinkle’ onto his forehead I always doubted.

Years later in the same ‘Anand Bhuvan’, ‘What’s it?’ I said with ice cooled voice sipping hot steaming tea, with him & for him I’ve learnt to live ahead take no tension. ‘I plan to have a baby girl’ he spoke leaning on the table moving close to me, perhaps ensuring I only listen him. ‘But that is you & your wife to decide, what can I say on this? Further having girl or boy is not in our scope’ I was trying hard clutching laughter within my teeth at the same time trying to keep my face as dumb as I could. ‘No no not like that, I’m planning to adopt a girl child’ he made it rather crystal clear. I was stumped, stunned and aghast I just kept looking at him. Not far from then I heard he then really adopted a girl child.

Just like he kept giving me shocks by announcing he quitting his permanent government job, starting his own hardware shop, visiting pilgrimage places barefooted, taking police head on for their allegedly misbehavior with someone he doesn’t even know yet witnessed the episode. Last I heard of him was he was testing waters to join politics. So far I’d enough of his experience, yet joining politics was not our cup of tea. Yet, I chose to keep quiet. He got elected from his ward, I congratulated him. He was same as he used to be some thirty five years back. ‘Lets’ have tea & how about ‘onion-bhajia?’. He said with twinkling eyes. He spoke none yet took ‘U’ turn towards our ever fresh ‘Anand Bhuvan’. As I was readying for another shock from him I noticed a small saffron coloured spot on his nose just below forehead where otherwise bridge of spectacles rest. ‘What is that tikka?’ I was getting restless. He spoke none till he ate the last of onion-bhajia from his plate unnecessarily stretching my patience. ‘Life is full of paradox, whatever we achieve; in the last is something we can’t take along with us. I’m going the spiritual way’ he spoke all this in one breath chilled voice. I broke the wooden chair of ‘Anand Bhuvan’ that day & got myself hurt in the hips as the shock he gave came to me like an earthquake. ‘Soon he’s going to Himalayas’ I ate my words before they passed through lips.

It was tremendous metamorphosis even he’d put butterfly to shame. For one day he reached my home in the Sunday afternoon with long beard mixture of his black-gray hairs, long saffron shirt & saffron dhoti. Multiple rosaries of various size & shaped ‘Rudraksh’ dangling in his neck & tied with his wrist where once upon a time he used to tie his wristwatch. My wife immediately went inside to get a coin to offer him as visibly she’d not recognized him even a bit. When I reintroduced him to her she was about to faint. As he was the one who actually got us close in the college & even arranged all those things like car of our common friend to kidnap my then fiancée, selection of distant temple, the Pooja items including Brahmin for our run away wedding & even had spent a night along with me in the police lock-up post our marriage. As my father in law was a senior police officer & I dared to kidnap his only daughter & marry her.

‘He’s wasting away’ I spoke to my wife who was almost sunk & shocked like me while looking at him walk away from our home in his wooden slippers. He’d definitely washed our brains during his stay of two hours on spirituality, took nothing we offered but only glass full of hot milk without sugar. ‘You must learn to control your organs. Why eat spicy & hot food while we can fill our stomach with normal cooked food at home without onion & garlic?’ I’d got used to his shocks; rather I became so confident now days that I was dreaming of catching live wire of 440 volts in bare hands like a rotten wooden stick. We discussed ourselves & decided to do something.

His home was almost converted into temple we’d to gulp our saliva to acclimatize ourselves with the drastic change. Bells were dangling with brass chains every feet of the ceiling, touching to the ceiling there were hundreds of frames of various deities each decorated with sandalwood garlands with incense sticks burning converting the white ceiling to black with its soot. The whole family was clad in saffron clothes. ‘They pray round the clock’ their visibly irritated neighbour whispered into my ears. It took us long & lot to convince them all. Lastly they agreed.

We bade them farewell on the cruise boat while they’d departed for the world tour for ninety days. We’d financed their tour just a small gift from us; somehow we were trying our bit to partially pay our respects for his deed in uniting us. While they were out we refurnished their home.

‘It is sin to convert a temple to house…’ the Masson talking to his helper I overheard & ignored.

By
Vijay Yelmelwar

AND WE ARE SERVED

‘Excuse me, hello!’ this time I’d pressed my lungs rather hard to increase my wind power and experienced the effect of sound energy. My NCC (National Cadet Core) day’s memories were green still. Actually I’d taken my friend to a good hotel for snacks, who came to me for the first time. And the waiter had kept us waiting on the table for so long that meanwhile to amuse my friend I even coined meaning for waiter that is ‘one who makes us wait’. Light shuk – shuk, mild hello, and little hard ‘waiter!’ had remained unyielding so far. The waiter seemed in charge of our row of table was conveniently turning blind eye & deaf ear towards us. By passing every minute I was getting restless as it was a matter of my image too since I’d bragged about the quality of food & prompt service of this hotel to my friend. Frenetic reminders from the empty stomach was equally disturbing why deny that even? As normally expected no sooner you sit at the table than the fellow should arrive with a tray of glasses of water & menu card.

With my lungs power at the best, the one who had taken us for ride & other two waiters, man at the cash counter came running to us. And yes the table occupiers of the entire hotel started trying their best to take my glimpse. Also, the sound had percolated through the kitchen it seems as few unseen ‘men in dark’ also started peeping out to search for the source of the sound. There was a glass braking noise I heard from my back. As the girl seated behind me dropped her glass as the sudden noise near to her ear had caught her unnoticed. And I started reining my select few words for the forthcoming incidence. We were served with utmost promptness then onwards, with we having no guilt in our mind for even not paying TIP to the waiter, wiped our palms to the paper napkin, put grains of mouth-fresheners in our mouth & came out of hotel as victorious warriors.

‘Waiters shouldn’t let customers wait at the table, for they get restless & if they stay around more time, we get deprived of more customers’ my hotelier friend was lecturing his men. As I’ve bred my body more on hotel food than on home food my frequent visits has made me endear to many of the hotel owners. I’m sure, it is due to die hard customers like me only those hoteliers have progressed from two centuries old marble & half century old wooden table & unseen yet leaving their presence deeply felt on the normally unseen place nailed wooden bench with unknown origin to posh sun mica covered tables & cushioned chairs. Also, the hoteliers have got rid of those snotty kids in torn half pants & button less shirt who would arrive to you with wiping their ever secreting mucus with the back of left palm, with carrying yellow aluminum glasses with spilling water while dipping his all the five fingers of right hand in them. His glimpse even is enough to kill the hunger otherwise, yet I’ve taken that as the gods’ wish & have eaten missal with double paav along with turry & still living.

‘Yes sir, may I help you’ star waiters from varied star studded hotels too I’ve unfortunately came across. Who put on three piece suit with bow tied to their neck, immaculately dressed with light refreshing perfume sprayed on their coat. Their dress is classes above mine even their manners, language, their well manicured fingers with their style amaze me or rather give me a complex, why lie? They get the same tea yet the worth is multifold that what I’m normally used to pay, on the top it needs to be made. By the time I put in water, tea bags, sugar, lemon drop or milk & stir the whole combination arrives at the room temperature leaving the fun in tasting tea far far behind. I in the last leave the posh place paying hefty tip which itself could quench thirst of my tea for coming three weeks.

I normally do not intend or afford to take enmity with any waiter whether he is the snotty waiter in the roadside shade or better dressed than mine in star hotel. He feeds me after all more than I’m fed at home.

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

FRIEND IS SOMEONE

‘A friend is someone who knows all about you’, like number of holes to your baniyan, colour of your underwear, drinks you gulped last evening, money you borrowed vowing to return by same day noon but didn’t till now, his Louis Philippe shirt you are using whenever he’s gone out, feeds expensive ice cream to his girl friend behind him; ‘& still (he) loves you’. Friends are like that!

You make a note to return to your room not before mid night just managing to walk somehow with the help from your like minded & like behaving other friends. Whilst your friend is waiting for you but he won’t make a bed since it is your turn to make a bed, he is still dozing in the hard sit chair. You come to room fully loaded, make bed & fall onto it. If not vomited remaining night your friend is lucky. He’s is man of words, he’d make it a point to get up three in the early morning or say in the night & roll off the bed & again shift to his hard sit chair to doze. Since it is as per your agreement one would make bed & the other would roll it up next morning. You, not realizing continue to roll on chilled floor, thanks to warmth you gained from last nights’ drinks.

You are a busy man. You’re managing the mess uncle to still let you feed by carrying forward your last three months’ balance; he then puts his weight behind you. He’d assure mess uncle for payment this time, else he’d pay. You, offer him a chance to keep his word, to mess uncle, literally. In volley ball or badminton when you need to get entry he talks to the coach who is also maths professor. Being his pet student the professor would let you in. He’d be the happiest person to see you out not only out of the team but out of this college too, which he’d declared in front of full class room on revealing your miraculous score in the maths exams. You’d take his girl friend to Benhur only for the sake of getting tickets alibiing, ‘girls get tickets soon’, while he’s preparing exam notes for you. Under the guise of compensating her favor you’d then make her see the film with you which turns out to be Dirty Dancing. Friends are like that only.

We planned to reduce at least some of sins of our miser friend who wouldn’t let friends like us even breathe in his room. I only had to convince him that he was simply great, all others are fools & I’d like to follow him, take his refuge. For next six months he sponsored all my expenses, till he realized my plot & I find my next victim.

What if, I borrow something from my friend would he harass me for that & take it? If I use my friends’ brand new expensive jeans & tear if off should he ask for a new? If I bang my friends’ twelve hundred CC bike on the wall should he ask for the compensation? Forget about all those Wadas, Idlies, Pizzas, Burgers, Cokes & drinks he has been sponsoring. After all god has created friends to take care.

We grew up in age friendship remained frozen there only. During my recent visit to Detroit I met my old buddy coincidently. He hadn’t forgotten me even a bit, he offered me his fag, shirts, pants, suit, car all that he had even opened his corner bar he maintained at his flat for me. We’d fun that day, I innocently asked about his college girl friend to whom I’d taken for Dirty Dancing. He shook his head in dismay, ‘we’ve forgotten each other at the happy ending note, she bade me farewell with this present’ he spoke in sunk deep voice showing the gold photo frame with photo of him, her & in between me. ‘You got married?’ I asked him in heavy voice even I was moved. ‘Leaving by tomorrows’ flight he said, ‘for engagement with girl recommended by parents’. ‘Even I’m leaving lets go together even my engagement is due next week’, I said.

In the wee hours we got down from the jumbo to our motherland our fiancées had come to the airport to receive us with their parents. I was ashamed to show him my face as he was aghast to note that my fiancée was his former girl friend who’d once came with me see Benhur & I showed her Dirty Dancing. With my skills I’d fooled her & him.

It took long time, trouble & lot of perspiration for me to convince my true friend to marry his girl friend whilst I offered to marry his fiancée if she wishes so. I was trying my way of doing friendship. After all god has created friends to take care.

By
Vijay Yelmelwar

AND THE FEAR GRIPS ME

Later I came to know it was just conjunctivitis. The fear of getting blind had gripped me otherwise that morning. I was terribly shaken as it took some while to see the daylight & opening eyelids took a stress on eyelids. I get up, since then, open only one eye then close it, open another to judge both the eyes are working fine. Slowly sit on the bed to see if I’ve lost balance, and then walk two steps slowly to ascertain. I then spit into basin to clear my doubt of throat infection, internal bleeding or say mouth cancer, if I spit blood. While brushing I use normal toothpaste & strontium chloride based toothpaste alternately for saving my forty years old teeth from getting sensitized & saving money too. Take milk not tea or coffee, delivered by our local milkman. I don’t trust the packaged milk what they remove & add to it I doubt if it is the same milk which cow or buffalo produces. For every alternate week there is article recommending or shunning use of coffee or tea. And the fear grips me of unknown disease just in seventies or eighties exactly when I wanted to live more.

‘Mind you if you are not afraid of death how will you survive in battle, it is fear which makes you to wear armour on your body’. I was trying to justify my regular use of helmet while on two wheeler & seat belt on cars. But you see, guys feel otherwise till they bang on something & learn the safety lesson only when they find themselves with hand tied to their neck & legs to the hospital bed midair. I never cross zebra crossing till I’m sure the last bicycle rider has deserted the road. Last I rode bike when I realized it needs to put your foot down to save yourself from falling on stopping the vehicle. Even in this age I bought my new ambassador for the safety reason only, it is iron cage. The RTO forbids else I was planning to weld the hardened steel grills outside the ambassador from all the sides. For long drive I’ve kept helmet ready which I wear inside the car. I don’t trust drivers’ skill, drive on my own. What is the point if you kill yourself by not taking precaution, you won’t get time for repentance too then. I travel with reservation without which I don’t keep foot inside the train; buses are out of question I don’t take bus otherwise too. Even with reservation I prefer an additional travel ticket, if I lose the reservation then? It so happened that, on VT station I’ve lost twenty five paise coin in 1971 the memory is still live here in my mind, who knows …?

I’ve taken due care & instructed everybody at home not to get any tame animals no cats, dogs or any birds. Rabbis is the incurable disease I know, birdflue too is not less deadlier. Well there is notice I’ve kept at my gate for intruders to get them beware of dogs. Any outsiders come & can be potential disease carrier & the fear grips me. Every year there is news in the paper people die of drowning in the swimming pool itself. Why on earth we the terrestrial mammals have to take dip in water? We take bath, drink water with food, make tea & coffee with or mix with liquor, isn’t that enough? I prefer piped cooking LPG gas no cylinders please. There is circuit breaker for each room in my home. Both the doors opening out have quadruplet locking system with additional bolting. For safety reason last year I bought two hockey sticks too which I keep behind the opened doors. Kept money & jewellery at home if burglars still intrudes in they shouldn’t get frustrated on getting nothing & kill us, the fear grips me.

My both the sons & baby doll are pierced with all those vaccines to save them even the disease which caused a death in south central Canada. Since my sister in laws neighbors’ friend live there, who knows…? On reading there is hole to the atmosphere up above on Australia which lets disease causing sun rays penetrate the earth I constantly use Ray ban sun glasses, coat myself with sunscreen lotion & use umbrella while entering & exiting my yet to grilled ambassador.

Of late I over heard, ‘sugar & salt are white poison…’. I’ve decided to quit sugar & salt immediately, milk & milk product causes cholesterol, oily & fried foodstuffs can’t be called foodstuffs, shunned outside food, meat & fish are abandoned. Increased my frequency of total body check up to monthly basis from yearly, bought a weighing scale, treadmill & roving cycle at home.

I’ve made the blunder of my life, however. They say every millionth year a big enough astride strike the earth vanishing everything existing. Smaller one keep banging earth every now & then. I should have at least taken care in building my home in RCC (reinforced cement concrete) than load bearing. It gets me wake up several times in the night to see if the ceiling is cracked somewhere? The fear grips me….

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

JUST ONE MORE

‘Drink is the sea actually, you can sink all your worries & revelries into’ on Sunday evening my not so normal friend uttered while trying to stand on his feet after his nip of rum before going for loo. We looked at him aghast by then he slowly turned himself & started walking towards lavatory. Perhaps mid way he came back as he went again after finishing his earlier statement, ‘…& yourself too’ he took longer time now to come back & left us pondering on his punch line. We were about to fall off our chairs this time not under alcoholic influence but listening his philosophy. The guy never spoke anything worth something during his whole life of forty years as he hardly tested the might of drinks. ‘fool turning into prophet for the first time I’m seeing’ another friend who got his senses under control with his philosophy quipped, ‘otherwise this turns prophets into fools’ he finished his glass with raising it bit to make us note that ‘this’ means the liquor. ‘Just one more’ I ordered the waiter for another round as with all those philosophers one normal guy got to accompany & live into reality.

But, I normally make my drinks appointments with friends who are in varied walks of life. With architect & contractor relieves me of not being dry like cement & brick & of course homeless, with readers & thinkers I feel at home as getting glasses before forty, over a glass of whiskey made me think I read more. With salaried friends I get to enjoy myself more than drinks does as they are under pressure of getting to work next morning anyhow even after a couple of pegs & I can allow myself skipping from work next day. With doctors, it assures me of my longevity, otherwise why any sensible doctor would drink? One of my professor friend too joins me taking due respect & after follow ups. His company amuses me of saving myself repeating the same shit things years after years. Yet, I envy him for his lifelong exposure to colourful greenery around in the college & his chance to speak to any of them at his will. Finance guys are my regular invitees & hosts. Their company never let me think of me getting bankrupt. One of them has pet line of his sweet wish, ‘I’d like all my friends to get millionaire, and I’ll get so automatically. Since likeminded only sit to drink’.

‘If drinks are so bad, why they say a peg a day keeps heart attack away?’ my friend who failed to become doctor & thinks he knows more than doctors do says with utter conviction. ‘Look you never stop at that a peg & progress to more ending yourself a stooge’ I tried to pacify him. He wouldn’t budge I know him top to toe. Anyway, drinks are drinks as fetal as a baby cobra if you take limited or a mommy cobra if unlimited. Saved yourself this time from its fangs lucky enough, yet luck may not come your way always.

‘I’d be nuisance if I take more…’ one senior civil servant from Australia was trying to hold his friend across the ocean I overheard during a cocktail party. It moved me. Pressing or compelling one for more is making him uncomfortable or killing him in short.

‘If you ask me’, I spoke to my friend over our discussions on the spirituality & religion on the moving station wagon wherein the driver is carefully chosen as non drinker in the summer night under twinkling stars. The drinks were being served & an enjoyed discussion was in progress. Outside it was fun the cool breeze from the open windows was touching not just the skin yet the soul. Suddenly the driver stopped the vehicle to inform us there are hundreds of deer grazing at the side of road. We peeped out to see them. Their beauty moved us. ‘The god has created them & this too’, I whispered lifting the half full glass. ‘If you kill them it is sin, if you kill yourself with this it is sin again. Enjoy both!’

This time it was my turn to wonder at myself, how could I get philosophical? The god is great!

By

Vijay Yelmelwar

MODERN DRESSES

‘Bikinis are the best’ my rather outspoken big mouthed friend expressed his inner desire on our debate started on some unknown issue. ‘Look even at the beauty pageant they make all those cuties to wear bikinis’ he was not retreating from his point though all of us agreeing to him yet due to embarrassment could not openly support him. ‘You can not put on bikini all the time or travel in train like that’, I tried to collect courage to stop him. ‘That would be still better…’ he whispered which we all heard without raising our ears. We concluded there only.

I drove home after that conversation; it was festive evening looking at the crowd on the street & their clothes. I felt if not exactly bikinis the female kingdom is definitely getting closer to that only. Being member of male kingdom I felt pity on them I mean us, we that is male kingdom, must need to observe more constraints in public life apart from rash driving, drinking, smoking, talking aloud & so on.

Poverty used to be judged by the clothes worn by the subject in good old days. Poor people were deprived of sufficient clothing to cover themselves. Kings & queens used to wear more than their bodies require & the left over would sweep the roads. Now, to keep oneself as naked as possible has been fashion statement, don’t trust me, switch on TV & get yourself satisfied. Have you seen cock picking up grains on the ground along with his family of five to ten hens & their chicks? How wonderful they look; even the cats, dogs, cows, and buffalos without any clothes on them they look just nice. Lovebirds, macaws are just splendid even the tigers, snakes simply great. We have rather lately discovered the strength in keeping ourselves as naked as possible.

You get to get exposed and what else one wants? We are rather constantly struggling to get exposed. I mean to the sun for that free vitamin D from its rays. Exposing enlightens one about his or her health. Good muscular body with cuts can make anybody get attention. To get attention if one is resorting to yoga, exercise, diet control then what is bad in it anyway? For health reason I’d support exposure.

There is fashion in exposing. One needs to be rich & great looking else who will look at her or him? I marvel why people went after Mahatma? He was poor, not good looking, spectacled, old & half naked. Either people then were not aware of strength of exposure or their meaning for exposing was just different.

Exposing has become an industry or I’d say it needs a separate ministry called exposure ministry. See, it is very simple; people go to see tennis as they love tennis is normal. If people, not knowing why those two on either side of the net hit the poor ball so ruthlessly, to go to see tennis & even get glued to their TV is exposure what can one conclude? One must be able to observe the stitch on tennis players’ innerwear & logo in blue of sponsor there. It is fun, rolled into beauty, into business, into skill of cameraman, into view & idea of sponsor, into crowd catching mechanism, into tennis players’ skill in flowing the skirt while shooting service or smashing volley. Why tennis we even get glued to TV to watch sports as swimming, sprinting, boxing…. The world sports society has decided, it is learnt, in sports if one needs exposure one must expose since it is sacred not obscene. Whomsoever thinks it is obscene he or she is scared.

Films, film gatherings for their various awards’ ceremony right from the Shivaji Park to Kodak Theater, public swimming pools, beaches etc. etc. are under the exposure ministry. They have excluded today’s hospitals as nurses around there are wearing skin tight dresses for their patients’ wellbeing it is considered sacred & does not fall under entertainment.

Well, all said & done if you dare you do what else? We on the banks stay mute & observe constraint watching you swim as we scare to get drowned.

By
Vijay Yelmelwar