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Three disparate objects |
Rahul, aged 12, joins Shalini’s
birthday party exactly about 30 minutes late in a baggy shirt and a casual
looking trouser. Shalini, looking
graceful, in a wine red dress opens the door.
They are friends from early
childhood, living in the same apartment complex and going to the same school. Now, with their teen maturity, birthday celebrations are low-key affair with only
the close family friends. Decorations and other paraphernalia have given way to
more of discussions, schools, preparations and the things happening around.
Apparently Rahul is not carrying a
gift, which makes Shalini angry.
Shalini obstructs Rahul at the
door and asks with a tinge of anger and mischievous smile on the face: “Where
is my birthday gift?
Rahul answers with a naughty grin: “I was busy the whole day and did not manage
time. Will make sure you get it next time”.
After little more chit-chat and
banter, Rahul is allowed to enter. He plops himself unceremoniously on the bean
bag at the corner, which was in Shalini’s possession till now.
Then, he slowly brings out one
small tear drop sized ear ring from his back pocket and hands it over to
Shalini.
Rahul: “Here is your gift”.
Shalini (utterly shocked): “Only one!”
Rahul (promptly with a smirk): “Gave
you the other one last year. Have you lost it?”
This makes Shalini angrier and she
is at a loss what to do with this boy while other friends are amused.
Shalini after few minutes, as if
nothing has happened and in a cool disposition, hands over Rahul half a piece
of cake on a plate.
Rahul (with a veil of innocence on
the face): “Only half, is there a shortage?”
Shalini (disguising smile): “Be
happy that you got the other half three days back in the school on Sudip’s
birthday “.
Shrugging his shoulder, Rahul,
says “Ok, ok”, being satisfied internally that his plan has worked that Shalini
is now trying to take revenge in some way or other.
Friends and other family friends
are quite familiar with these bitter-sweet verbal dual between these two and
everyone enjoys as it never gets ugly and both know where to stop and draw the
line.
However, Shalini’s mother jumps in
and tries to cool down the warring folks by hugging both of them together
trying to divert the topic to something else.
While on the rounds to meet others
around the house, the picture of the WoW prompt on Shalini’s study table caught
Rahul’s attention and he enquired about it.
“Interesting”, says Rahul after
getting the details from Shalini’s elder sister- a writer and blogger for quite
some time now. Few other friends also joined them at the study.
Rahul (addressing everyone):
“Let’s put our brains to work for a fun game.
Let’s connect all these three either through a common word or sequence
of events.” Everyone seems to like the idea and agreed, including Shalini, who
was so far sulking at everything Rahul was talking about.
Abhi, a gadget freak amongst the
friends, comes up with the idea that the ear ring is actually a Bluetooth
device which gets paired with the smart phone to make an order for a birthday
cake.
Seema conjures up with a short
story that they went out for celebration at Dominos on her baby sister’s birthday
last month. The cake has just arrived when her sister started having a pain in
her left ear from the recently done ear piercing. To relieve her of the pain, her
mother took out left ear ring thinking that will take care of the matter in next
few minutes. When the ache did not ease, her father used the smart phone
application to find out the nearest doctor for a quick visit. The party started
in full swing once they came back.
While everyone is busy with what
can be the possible stories or events, the author-Jay, incidentally present at
the same birthday party to pick his daughter comes up with an idea of involving
everyone in a picture dumb charades.
Jay will provide the connecting clues and
everyone has to guess the connection.
With that, he holds out the ear
ring.
When someone says “ear ring”
amongst other guesses like “small”, “beautiful”, “jewelry”, he points to the “ear
ring” and gestures to break it into parts in the way one does as per the rules
on dumb charades.
They decide on to consider the
second half that is “ring” and then Jay imitates a music player playing a tune.
After different attempts for few
minutes, Tua, holding out the smart phone from Shalini’s mom, comes with “tone”
which completed the word as “ring tone”. That makes sense to everyone and they
settle with that answer. Everyone is satisfied and happy that ear ring and
phone got connected with the common word “ring tone”. With that being done, the cake is left,
pushing everyone’s brain into a spin to dig more on to what can be the next
connection.
While everyone is aware of various
kinds of ring tones as piece of music, jingles, the next indication from Jay
comes in the form of decoration around, balloons, babies enjoying a party.
The way Jay presents the clue with
his immaculate mannerisms-it was not difficult for everyone to get to the
famous “Happy Birth Day To You” song as the ring tone from the phone indicating that
cake follows just after the song.
With glee in their faces and
content at being able to ultimately decode the connections, everyone thanks Jay
to come up with this teaser in the short span of time he is there. They all
look happy, satisfied. Rahul and Shalini did not notice when they forgot the
initial acrimony that they both were feigning at each other and got involved
into the hilarious flow.
Dinner is served by now. Everyone
gorges over the delicious food and enjoys the blast in the party.
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