The Mystery of the Missing Mombattis (And other forms of illumination)

I have always wanted to be a stranger in a strange land, and nowadays I have progressed to being as close to a stranger in a strange land as is humanly possible. I have become a surfer in strange cyber-cafes. No, seriously. Every one of them is different. The keyboards feel different, the screens are all different, my posterior tells me the chairs are different. Yes, you can say "duh" now. But I will still maintain that it is a novelty to have your computer misbehave with you on a daily basis.

Notice how I have learned to handle setbacks. No, I have not been reading Dale Carnegie.

Today, however, I am at a computer I know fairly well, at Sil's place. It is Diwali and I am acting like a cheapskate. I insist on blogging in the same room that Sil insists on watching some highbrow movie in. When you can sit in the same room with a person and work at two different computers for more than half an hour, you know who your first murder victim will not be. Of course, I get the uglier computer, but you know the saying about beggars. And I've progressed to the level of Elite Groveller. So I type, and am happy.

The reason I am not at home is because I am in dire disgrace with my family. You'd think that they would have learnt by now that I cannot ever follow instructions, but no. They, being my family, persevere in trying to reform me, and churn out days like yesterday. It all started when I was walking aimlessly down Dhakuria bridge. The mater called up in a raging fury and ordered me back home. I had conveniently forgotten that I was supposed to put up Diwali lights over every window grill, door, balcony, and other Surfaces That Are Not Walls And Are Near An Electrical Socket. It was Diwali Eve! The house was Dark! What was I thinking!

Mine not to question why, mine but to do and die, you know how it goes. So I trotted back home, and headed straight for the cabinet with the drawer that I've mentally labelled Tooni Bulb Corner. Six strings of hopeful-looking bulbs usually nestle there, but yesterday there were two. Two sorry-looking strings of lights. And one, I quickly discovered, wouldn't work, except for six feeble blue bulbs somewhere along the end.

Instant panic. An exhausting search around the house for the truant tooni bulbs. No results. Trying to convince parents that I didn't have it in me to make tooni bulbs vanish. I mean, what a lame superpower. Not that it worked. It was still my fault, and it didn't help that I managed to entangle myself in the one functional string while trying to put it up. This wasn't my fault either, my balcony just has a very elaborate grill that I still haven't managed to figure out. Sometimes I'm convinced it's some abstract artist's revenge on the world. He probably didn't sell much, so he decided to make balcony grills. Plausible, don't you think?

The bulbs still haven't been found. To top it all, a packet of candles has disappeared too. This evening I sheepishly lit every diya I could find in the house to mollify the parents, cleaned my room as a bonus prize, and scooted off here. Oh, and on the way I sneaked a couple of sweets out of the fridge. I'm not a mistreated child or anything, but it's always fun to try and be a semi-tragic figure. Besides, Diwali's too wonderful a festival to bother about string lights. They'd make a pretty effective murder weapon, I think, provided they stick around long enough for you to strangle your victim with them.