The soldier who saw everything twice; is a chapter from Catch-22, a description of a soldier who sees 2 fingers, 10 fingers and no fingers as "Two" uniformly. My neighbour had the feeling that she was down with the same disease on saturday when I was visited by a couple of 5 year olds, who, coincidentally were one single egg at one point of time. the world's most grown up kids, Rajashree and jayashree [ also the name of a very great friend of mine], tolerated my childishness with non-chalance and changed their expression from 'uninterested' only once- at the mention of 'choclate'. Their mother expressed one opinion that had come to slap me and my long-suffering sibling very often, if we dare to venture out together-"why! I would have thought you[me and the long-sufferer] are twins, had I not known you long."
Hmmm.... this wasn't the first time such a speculation came up. From a house wife in Bellary district of karnatak to the Hip and intelligent IIT students, this wide range of people have all been under the impression that we are twin sisters. We both feel very insulted at that.
Plenty of people have pointed to her photos and asked me, 'Where was this picture of you taken?'. That was the second most embarrassing supposition of the general public made about me with regard to my appearance.
What is worse is the fact that we supposedly sound like each other too... [ so god ran out of gene combos and repeated the good version?]. Funny, that I am musically impaired and She is a celebrated singer. Everytime that my sister's friends called home and I happened to be unemployed and in enough good spirits to pick up the handset; the typical conversation would go as follows:
X: 'Hello?!!'
Me: 'Hi.'
X: 'So. what did you decide?'
Me: ''bout what?... who is this?'
X: [mimics me] :'who do you think @#$%^ ?'
[ we go in to a loop of about 5 repetions of 'who are you' and 'you guess']
Me: [still polite] 'May I know what number you want'
X:'you mean between 1 and 10? why would you want to know that?'
Me: ' Can you atleast tell me who you would like to speak to?'
X:[suspiciously] 'Why are you talking like a Butler? and your english accent sucks!!!'
Me: 'Never mind. Go Ahead'
[ X then goes on to give me an update on the adventures of the numerous couples, who I assume are in their place of education. The next monologue is about what everyone was wearing. I begin to nod off at this stage]
X: '{my_sister's_name}, You there?'
Me: 'So you want {my_sister's_name}? Let me call her. Whom shall I say is calling?'
X: '{my_sister's_name}, you dope! now you are pretending to be a combination of your sister and the butler!!!'
The thought of the combination, sends shudders down my spine as I transfer the post of patient listener to my Sister and run for my life.
My sister however hasn't been fortunate enough to mislead my friends. She is far too nice over phone to ever be confused with me.
But we have differences in a lot of other things. Memory power for one; I don't have any, she has loads. Two different, unrelated friends of mine would have left from here over the weekend, I have been wanting to meet them. I even got the number of one, but couldn't remember it later. As a result, she must have been off to Hyderabad, having waited to meet me in the station. And the other one would have met the similar fate with the exception that her destination is Kolkatta. God I hope that they remember the extent of my memory and forgive me, like they usually do. I have been feeling quite guilty about that.
On that sober note,
Rain
