(Fiction)
Since I started to work and earn my moolah, Srinidhi, my roommate has started to get convulsions. Out of the blue, he starts to demand things that only an inmate of some lunatic asylum would yearn for. His friend Ajay and Paresh are treading the same path. Let me give you one instance of the lunatic intricacies of these dodos. Read on…..
It began innocuously enough. We were relishing this BMD (Benne Masale Dosei) at one of our regular hangouts, for which, as usual I had paid the bill. Suddenly, “I wish I could get a Jacuzzi,” said Srinidhi. I shook my head. “No. No pets in our room. They are hard to live with in our small room that is already messy enough with your courteousness. I will NOT allow a pet in our room. No.” I made my stand clear. “A Jacuzzi’s not a pet; it’s a fantastic invention,” said Sri. “I came across one in USA once,” he added. I nodded. “USA has a lot of fantastic inventions, like skunks, limos, and Anna Nicole Smith,” Intervened Paresh. “Any relation?” he asked.
But it seemed that a Jacuzzi wasn’t a classified bigot or the other things referred to by Paresh, but it was a classy bathtub. “It’s super,” said Sri. “You sit in it and there are all these strategically placed jets which whoosh out compressed air to create a bubbly whirlpool effect which massages your neck and back and shoulders; great for relieving stress,” he explained. “It was fantastic,” he added wistfully. “America is on the other side of the globe. Shut up and finish your dosa” Ajay replied firmly. I thought that was that.
But apparently, America wasn’t that far after all. A couple of days later, there was an ad in the papers which said there was a company right here in Bengalooru selling the darned things. Srinidhi rang the number and a personable salesperson came calling to our room. She explained to us the therapeutic effects of a Jacuzzi, how all those whooshing air bubbles in the water gently massaged away tension. To acquire a Jacuzzi was to acquire a whole new lifestyle, she explained. “How much do all those lifestyle air bubbles cost?” I asked. The salesperson sniffed personably at this infusion of crass commerce into effervescent lifestyle. She conceded finally that her company offered Jacuzzis ranging from Rs. 65,000 to Rs. 5 lakh. “Jumping Jacuzzis!” I whistled. “Why would anyone want to pay 65,000 bucks, leave alone 5 lakh, to sit among a bunch of air bubbles when one could achieve the same result by eating a lot of dal and sitting in a maamuli 2,000 rupee bathtub like the one we have now?” I demanded. The salesperson sniffed even more emphatically, as though I were a maamuli bubble of recycled dal myself and Sri told me not to be coarse.
The upshot was that Srinidhi made out a cheque for one of the more moderately priced models. The cheque was the very one I had given to him for emergencies. A few days later, it was delivered, much to the excitement of our neighbors. As soon as it was kept on the floor, Sri leapt into it in an ecstasy of anticipatory gluttony
“Well, you’ve got your jacuzzi,” I told Sri. But I was wrong. We hadn’t got the jacuzzi; the jacuzzi had got us. For it was soon demonstrated that a jacuzzi is not an inert, passive object, like a stone or an MP or Paresh, but one of those active Einsteinian force fields which go about warping the time-space continuum in their vicinity. Getting a jacuzzi is like getting married; you discover that you’ve not only got a spouse but a bunch of accompanying in-laws as well.
The first such in our case was what the jacuzzi Jane (the salesperson) called a ‘pop-up west’. What on earth was a pop-up west? A succinct definition of western civilization as represented by the Mac-culture of Coke and KFC? A jack-in-the-box out of which popped George W Bush and Dick Cheney? “Pop-up west,” reiterated the jacuzzi Jane, producing a heavy-duty item of machinery that looked like the exhaust pipe of a Tata Truck. The graphic on the box said: Power waste disposal, to dispose of wastewater. “Pop-up west,” agreed the Jane. “Rs. 5,000 only, minus value added tax.”
After the pop-up west, came the pop-up tiles to coat the sides of the jacuzzi, and let me not mention how much those were, plus pr minus sales tax. After the pop-up tiles, came the pop- up flooring to go with the tiles and the pop-up door to go with the flooring and the pop-up lights to go with the door and the pop-up curtains to go with the lights.
It’s been months and a series of pop-up workmen have been popping up with pop-up bills. “At this rate we’ll have to pop-up our whole room and get ourselves a new one in keeping with that damn jacuzzi,” I mutter. “If we pop-up our house where’ll we go live?” asks Srini. “How about USA?” I suggest. “Can’t; we don’t have the money to get past Peenya,” points out Srinidhi. “If we’re so broke, can we really afford a jacuzzi for our attached bathroom?” I ask, contemplating our yet unused acquisition. “Cheer up, brave heart, that’s no jacuzzi,” corrects Srinidhi. “Let me introduce to the world’s first jacusri.”
P.S: AS THIS ARTICLE IS BEING UPLOADED, SRINIDHI HAS THIS NEW LONGING FOR NIGHT VISION BINOCULARS AND PARAPHERNALIA.
