Of Big Brother and broken umbrellas

The clouds and the sun were scheming devious plots against Chronos, the god of time, who oblivious of the situation kept ticking away customarily. Or so it seemed. My alarm buzzed and I waked into pitch darkness. Winds blew hard, striking my well wrapped body like a battering ram. And oblique pencils of rain pierced down like arrows sent flying from a taut bow. I walked down, umbrella in hand like a battling soldier. Thank God, I had a new umbrella at last. The old one was battered, bruised and beyond repair. With flapping opposite ends and a couple of broken bars, it almost passed of as a new style in umbrella design (a Gucci or an Armani, if they were ever into designing them that is). But I soon realized that the utility card desperately needed to override all other and there was no way I could continue with the old horse.

And what a wise decision it was. The new one stood firm and arched like all good umbrellas should stand; battling the gale storms like a tried and tested warrior. I had floated the idea sometime back that crafty umbrella holding in extremely windy conditions is worthy of qualifying as an Olympic discipline. If at any time the idea sounded lofty and preposterous, it was sure to be quelled today. I flipped umbrella sides as deftly as a sailor would tilt the sails of his yacht to catch the drift. And every right maneuver swelled me with a sense of pride (and every wrong one left me as wet as a helpless fish).

But the rain had petered down to a drizzle when I eventually reached the gravel parking and joined the wet and waiting crowd. The wind undeterred though had pressed the pedal, pressing my new black stallion to struggle in order to not turn turtle. ‘Europe under siege’, newspapers had screamed amidst photographs of monster winds and rising tides. And the damage and the foul weather not withstanding it was a refreshing change to have something different on the British dailies. It was all about Big Brother and Shilpa Shetty the past couple of weeks, who for some unfathomable reason was getting called everything under the sun. But it had racial undertones was the global debate. ‘…the Indian’, I hear she was called (but wait a minute, isn’t she one anyways. ‘…a dog’, they continued (now that can’t be true. One, there’s a clear cut gender error and two, from what I see of her on the tele, she’s probably in contention for the Ramon Magsasay this year ( or probably and more realistically, atleast the Bafta).

So as Shilpa braves all the rough treatment and cries her way to a cool three crores in the confines of comfy big brother’s house, I stood there soaking in the lousy weather. Two souls ahead of me, a short stout country man had his broken wreck of an umbrella rise up like a crustacean; or like Marlyn Monroe’s skirt in that eternal video clip from yore. And as it folded up like a rising curtain, the man underneath surfaced, smiling sheepishly at all those who stared at him like in an Indian version of Mr. Bean. I muffled a snigger. The blonde standing in front of me laughed uninhibited. Now I wonder if that’s racist. Considering the times, it probably is.