Chettipuniam Nights I

The police were meticulously combing the area known as Chettipuniam for any traces of the hidden serial killer. This particular killer had the audacity to show himself in public with his weapon of choice, allegedly a cycle stand composed of wrought iron.

He did not stop there. He had raised the cycle stand high above his head in an inhuman attempt to slaughter an innocent by standing kid, and had screamed, “I’m going to kill you, mangy mutt!” At this instant, the ‘killer’ was indirectly responsible for making that kid perform the impossible mixture of crying, wetting his pants and fainting at the same time; the ladies sitting and gossiping on the road side opened their mouths in terror and closed them with their hands (A rather useless gesture. Why couldn’t they just close their mouths and act surprised anyway?); the men looked upon the killer, an abundance of terror present in their eyes; some quaking in their ill-tailored pants and some took the ends of their off-white dhoties and started chewing on them, for fear of biting off their finger nails in the tension.


Whoa, hold your horses; I’m moving too fast for my own good. Let’s slow down. Na, let’s rewind a little and come back to this picture which I have painted.

Ever since the frustrated software engineer (Let’s call him VBK) had come into the area known as Chettipuniam, he had been under attack by various forces of nature. These included, among other revolting creatures, snakes which gobbled up rapidly multiplying toads, an endless horde of stray dogs which took malicious pleasure in chasing innocent software engineers to the brink of exhaustion (All except VBK’s roommate Don, because all the dogs used to cringe in fear at the very sight of him.. His Himalayan appearance could be better described in another post dedicated to his entirety.)

It was a standard morning – waking up to the scratchy feeling that in an hour more he will be sitting in front of a screen in a zombie like state sipping on some horrid tasting coffee and mindlessly trolling around some pointless code, which is so sensitive that as soon as you touch it, it throws up hundreds of errors. Doctors prescribe something to stop people from throwing up, and software engineers prescribe bits of code to prevent the software from throwing up (errors).

VBK, the veteran of the public forum, also known as BB VBK, was as usual dissolving the BB and drinking it in (Sounds better when translated to Tanglish – karachu kudichufying) when he came across this post-

From: Swapna Sridharan
Posted At: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 10:41 AM
Posted To: ******
Conversation: Need to kick some ass
Subject: Need to kick some ass
Hi,
Any pointers to stress busting – any place where we have full authority to go and break, crack, hit, bite, pull, push, annihilate, burn, crush or grind random objects in frustration, please let me know. I am totally pissed off in life right now.
-Swapna

At this point in time, VBK had the dreaded impulse which would later lead to the series of unfortunate events which was least expected. He wrote –

From: VBK
Posted At: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 10:42 AM
Posted To: ******
Conversation: Need to kick some ass
Subject: Need to kick some ass
CC (Put my name in cc) to my Id. I need to kick some too.
-VBK

It was a really different post which VBK could relate to and he was sure that it would get deleted as soon as the Iron Fist got to see it. And he was right, because in a hurried frenzy, the posts got deleted. But what did not get deleted was the name of the person from VBK’s mind. It was a girl. And a rarity. How many women are violent enough to want such things and also audacious enough to post it on the BB?

That was a real turn on. And yea, you guessed what happens next – it blooms. Here ‘It’ is an unclassified concept which is better off undefined. You know, no strings attached. Just It. But whatever ‘it’ is, I would just like to warn you with a rhyme – If it blooms, then at sometime it will be doomed. Bloom and doom. And the unfortunate VBK had not a clue about this. Very soon that CC to my ID to a random stranger became a

“Hey, let’s go for coffee, there’s a new coffee machine on the ground floor.. Don’t forget to bring your mug!” And so it was. VBK and Swapna Sridharan for coffee outside one of the buildings.

Now many fellow software engineers might have come across this particular post on the BB –

“DON’T KEEP COFFEE MUGS OUTSIDE BUILDINGS, DOGS WILL COME AND LICK”

And that was exactly what happened when VBK and his unclassified date finished their coffee and were chatting up schemes about how to inflict violence on unsuspecting passerby folks.

“Hey, you stray doggie! Get the hell out and stop licking my cup!” She yelled. The dog looked up, puzzled by the sudden outburst. He was just about to lick the cup, when the violent Swapna threw a stone at the poor unsuspecting dog. The projectile of the stone was such that it hit the dog squarely in the middle of the eyes. He yelped helplessly and ran away, but as he moved away, he gave such a menacing look to VBK that ensured, “I’ll take care of you later, you animal abuser!”