Dorky Guffaw and the Traffic Signal Misadventure

Well, adventure seems to chase around Dorky and is stuck to him very much like a third nipple would have (had he had one), and shows its presence in the most mundane and irregular of times, one such of which is being documented here for posterity.

Dorky has had a new means of transport, a bike, that his Ameyzing friend couldn't fit into the cargo baggage on his study-cum-recreation-by-watching-every-possible-artist-perform-live two year stint in some place named Buffalo (where, the most abundant type of four-legged creature, incidentally, are people who are bent over, doggy-style), and hence had to leave it at the airport for Dorky to take back home, after it almost made the conveyor belt break under its weight.

Last heard, he was upgraded from economy, and flew business class for some inexplicable reason. Dorky likes to believe it was good Karma.

Anyway, the bike needed a little servicing, and once it was taken care of at the service center, Dorky set about traveling all across the city on it, although never for arbit reasons as he might once have. After a thorough wash, and some cleaning, and a few new things to spruce it up, the bike was back in the condition that it was supposed to have been in.

The people that inhabit the city that Dorky lives in know for a fact that most of the time spent on the road is invariably spent at traffic signals. Traffic signals and the inevitable delays associated with waiting at them have now become a way of life, such that most highly ingenious people have resorted to utilizing this time for more fruitful purposes.

Portable potties on the side of the road help people take a dump, while washbasins are kept in place for people to brush their teeths (sic). If the wait time at traffic signals goes up further, portable showerheads and shower curtains will also not be too far off for the bustling signal-sidewalk trade.

Some people end up buying their vegetables in the evening while on their ride back home, while students, specially those majoring in electronics and communication at VTU, have, according to unconfirmed and somewhat authentic reports, managed to study the entire syllabus for some subjects while on their way to the exam in college.

Love stories now happen at traffic signals, as lovers of opposite sexes and sometimes, non-opposite sexes (21st Century India is coming out of the closet) , faces hidden in their helmets or behind tinted glasses of neighbouring cars engage in an intimate and intricate courtship ritual that is the stuff that the next Bollywood fop film will derive inspiration from.

Dorky himself was witness to a plethora of such phenomena, and was slowly inured to it, with the passage of time. However, something happened the other day, that brought about an interesting twist to the whole commuting phenomenon.

Dorky was traveling on the bike towards a secret unspecified destination, that he himself had no idea about, while listening to some Arch Enemy (a band he'd recently started listening to) on his ipod. The helmet that his friend had purchased was one size too big, which was perfect for Dorky, as he could listen to music while on the move, albeit at a low volume so as not to prevent him from hearing the traffic. The intense decibel level didn't really warrant a volume reduction, just for the record.

I come to you in the night,
I am your dark subconscience
I keep you awake knowing
I am the Heart of Darkness

Dorky was trying to headbang with a big helmet on his head, and looked strikingly like a spaceman with epileptic seizure trying to ride a bike, but since he was unaware of how he looked, ignorance being bliss, he continued his appreciation for the music, unabated. He spotted a traffic signal ahead, well, he actually spotted a whole bunch of vehicles ahead of him on the road, and guessed correctly that a traffic signal lay about 200 metres further ahead, which toughly translated to ten minutes of wait time for him.

He slipped the bike into neutral, switched off the engine and folding his arms, kept listening to music, while intently staring ahead, his mind blank for everything except the music playing in his ears.

His musical appreciation reverie was suddenly disturbed by a loud screech of the kind that you can see right below.

Screeeeeeeeeeeecccccccchh!!!!!!!

Yup, that kind. Noisy and irritating.

He turned around and saw a dude, in a black leather jacket, on his super bike, matching Dorky's (hopefully)menacing stare, eyeballs to eyeballs, through the visors of their respective helmets.

Dorky noticed that the dude, who we shall call Mike (simply because it rhymes with bike), had skidded and come to a halt dangerously close to his bike, and gave him a look, that motorists all over the world know and acknowledge as the "don't fuck with the silencer of my Gaadi by coming too close" look, to which Mike took extreme umbrage.

The high noise levels of the vehicles surrounding them on a busy road then prompted the two of them to engage in conversation through a mode that transcended beyond the usage of mere words for communication. They just needed the language of glares, stares and hand gestures to put their respective points across.

However, since words need to be employed in this blog post to put forth the actual gist of the exchange, it nevertheless warrants a translation of the various messages traded across amongst Dorky and Mike, which are as follows:

Dorky - Don't stand, don't stand so close to me.
(which sounds so much like a Police song)
Mike - I'll stand wherever I want to, balls to you, you skinny runt!
Dorky - Oh yeah? Wait and see, I will beat you to pulp.
Mike - Watch me beat YOU to pulp.
(It is then that Dorky proceeds to take out his Rubik's cube and solves it within 15 seconds. What Mike is unaware of is that Dorky had solved it earlier and had just rearranged it into another pattern by twisting each surface by two turns, to make it into an alternating criss-cross-cube-colour-combo.)
Dorky - Let's see YOU do that, spazzo!
(Mike then proceeds to call up his girlfriend, and gives her a telephonic orgasm in 10 seconds. Dorky has no way of knowing whether it was faked or stage-managed)
This whole battle continued as the people about them went around taking showers, taking a dump, solving Sudoku puzzles and cryptic crosswords, engaging in courtship rituals and the like, and 'both these two' guys hadn't bothered with their morning ablutions still, because of this particular clash.

They finally decided to settle it like grown men usually do, by having a bike race, with the one who won being the champion (of what exactly, nobody knows till date, and nobody cares either. It is plain human tendency to try and prove you're better than others, even in inane contests like being stupid, for instance).

The traffic signal countdown showed 60 seconds till the green light. Dorky put the side stand of his bike, got down, went on the side walk and did ten sit-ups (all with his helmet on, the ipod still playing away songs in his ears). After stretching his arms, when there were 25 seconds more, he mounted the bike. (He mounted the bike - heheheheheheheh - don't think of what you're thinking of!)

Mike, on the other hand, lifted his bike, and did a couple of bench presses on the road, with the bike above him. Onlookers, Dorky included, were astounded by his display of strength, but Dorky knew, because he had read the Panchatantra when he was a kid, a few months ago, that 'mighty brawn is no match for nimble brain', but Dorky failed to notice that he had neither quality in abundant quantities while Mike had atleast one of the afore-mentioned ones.

With 25 seconds to go, both men were on their bikes - the signal counting down the last few remaining seconds of the life of at least one of the two people involved in the race, for it was going to be a fight to the death, gladiator-style, so help them God.

The sweat on Dorky's brow began to cloud his vision, as it formed huge droplets that fell on the lenses of his spectacles, and he had to remove his hanky and wipe it clean, so he could see ahead clearly. Mike, on the other hand, was surprisingly cool about the whole thing, as he started his bike and revved his engine loudly, in an unnecessary show of strength, increasing the carbon emission content in the atmosphere when it wasn't absolutely necessary.

Dorky started the engine of his bike too, and with a high idling time for the engine, did not resort to making the kind of revving noises that Mike did, as the countdown entered single digits.

6...5...4...3...2...1

Dorky didn't know about Mike, but his heart was traveling up his oesophagus, all the way till his vocal chords, and was thumping away like a bongo drum in the hands of a drunk chimp with drum-sticks.

Both the bikes were into first gear, as the riders were valiantly trying to look ahead and see if the traffic train, which was thirty metres to the signal, was clearing fast. Dodging their way through the other motorists' path, receiving not-unjustified curses from the other people waiting to cross the signal, the twosome zig-zagged through, and surged ahead.

Dorky, in a cool and calculated move, just went past Mike onto his right, forcing Mike to the left, and then moved left again, so that Mike didn't have space and was forced to move further to the left yet again - resulting in him coming dangerously close to the footpath.

It was then that Mike realized that Dorky had tricked and out-manoeuvred him, and that defeat was imminent, for just ten metres ahead, lay a traffic cop checking post, and Mike was stopped by the cops. Dorky had read Mike's license plate and knew that he was an outstation donkey who'd probably not paid his road-tax, and thus, he chose to make this move to force him onto the left side.

Dorky stopped the bike, parked it on the side stand and watched as Mike was forced to pay up a hefty fine for his offence. Without any further ado, he flashed a thumbs-up at Mike, gave him a big trademark grin, and got on the bike. This time, he almost stumbled and fell as he was about to start if again, but he managed to retain his balance and rode off to his unspecified-destination, with the melodious strains of We Are The Champions by Queen ringing away in his ears.

It should've been an evening adventure, he could have ridden away into the sunset.

Ah well.

Dorky Guffaw and The PonyTale Tail

Dorky Guffaw is a superhero. He is a conventional superhero, in lieu of the fact that he does not conform to any of the stereotypes that you'd associate with every other superhero that you'd be aware of, who exists out there.

Dorky Guffaw came into being, one fine ennui-filled afternoon, when a colleague of mine and I were engaged in arbit gtalk chatter, in the absence of anything else remote fruitful to accomplish, and even if there would've actually been something that may have been done, the enthusiasm levels had dipped to negative, facilitating some arbit chatter that lead to the creative section of the brain working overtime, thus resulting in DG's birth.

It is a mere coincidence that he shares his initials with those of DeveGowda or Dolce and Gabbana, for any resemblance between this fictional character and the afore mentioned ones is unintended.

Dorky Guffaw is an uncoordinated klutz, who, in a quixotic manner, has become the self appointed saviour of the Indian IT industry, and its thousands of employees. Just like the absolutely jobless bunch of kids in Enid Blyton novels, that went around trying to solve cases or crimes they had no business involving themselves in, DG also takes up cases despite not being assigned any and his methods of working and going about doing things aren't half as delightful as that of the jobless kids who, strangely, have alliterative collective names (Five Find-outers, Famous Five, Secret Seven and the like).

Dorky Guffaw's trademark move is his dorky guffaw, laughter that rumbles deep from within his skinny being and is accompanied by pig-like snorts that he makes in an attempt to laugh. This is usually done at the end of solving a case, and for the sake of having continued readership, no attempts have been made to describe this sound, and our deepest pity rests with those that have an overactive imagination and need no descriptions to imagine Dorky Guffaw's dorky guffaws.

Since this is DG's blog debut, there was the necessity of having to have such a detailed background of his, a sort of 'pilot-episode', had this been a sitcom, and the author hopes earnestly that he shall refrain from going off on unnecessary tangents in future adventures, but can't guarantee the same.

(Now would be the right time to add the subscription of this blog either to Google Reader or Bloglines or some other RSS feed reader).

This particular adventure begins on an A/C bus on the Mysore-Bangalore highway, which Dorky has boarded, in order to get back to Bangalore, and to his office. This particular adventure ends, as will all the others (well, most of the others), with his getting embarassed, but that to him makes as much of a difference as heavy rain does, to a thick-skinned buffalo. (That analogy sounded better in my native tongue, Konkani.)

Being a lone traveller on almost all his journeys, even on this occasion, the seat next to Dorky's was empty. Normally, an empty seat would either stay empty, or be taken over by some random obnoxious guy who'd talk away on his phone on a loud voice, drowning out the loudest music Dorky could find on his portable music player, or someone who was bulky and would sit such that Dorky's thin frame was further squeezed in the limited seat space that he actually had.

The 'Maximum Moisturizer' ad of old times, where a person sees a beautiful girl on a flight, and hopes that she comes and sits next to him, whlie she goes ahead and actually says that the guy is on her seat, is fiction. It happens only in the world of movies of the romantic comedy types and advertisements where you are then cajoled into buying random shit you never needed in the first place anyway, with the promise that if you do, someone who fits the bill of lovely woooman would come and sit next to you, and you'd get along like a house on fire and then either part ways or hook up. A lot of poor sods have ended up investing in Maximum Moisturizer, consequently, for no logcal reason whatsoever.

Dorky never had any such luck, but today was slightly different. Maybe it was because he carried two handkerchiefs, one for blowing his nose into, and the other standard issue one to wipe his face. The seat next to him was empty until the bus started, and just as it was about to leave, a real cute girl climbed in, and after scanning all the seats around, came and sat down next to him.

Dorky's heart skipped a beat, for she was, in a word, beautiful. Just because he didn't go out with too many women (too many = all the eligible ones out there) didn't make him the kind who would drop his standards of beauty, so we can asssume, correctly, that she'd have actually been beautiful, if he says so.

With a mole on her upper lip, that was very Cindy Crawford-ish, but many times more beautiful in a manner that only Indian women can be, and with the delightful smell of Davidoff Cool Water (the only Wooman's perfume Dorky could identify) watfting into his blocked nostrils, she was just the kind of person DG last expected to be sitting next to him.

Dorky had grown his hair for a year now, and had just begun tying it up in a ponytail, and was hence finding it uncomfortable to sit with his head against the headrest, for the felt, in earnest, the discomfort that goes with discovering how your head has something extra attached to it, that previously wasn't there.

Who better than a woman with a ponytail to offer advice in this regard, Dorky thought and decided to ask the cute chick next to him, about how she manages to sit without her ponytail poking the headrest bothering her. It reminded Dorky of a Tintin comic he had once read, 'Tintin and the Crab with the Golden Claws', where Captain Haddock's mate, Allan, asks him whether he slept with his beard under the blanket or over it, which led to the Captain having a sleepless night, trying to decide which way he actually did it.

What follows next is classic Dorky material. It must be said, at the outset that only a small fraction of initiating this conversation was in order to get chatting with her, while most of the intent was centered around resolving a genuine doubt.

Dorky: Excuse me, can I ask you a question?
(thinking to himself - could I have possibly asked something stupider than that??)

Cutie (raising her eyebrows, thinking to herself - here's another one who needs to bite the dust): Yeah?

Dorky (pointing to his ponytail): I just wanted to know how it is that you manage to sit, without your ponytail bothering you. I try sitting and I am not sure how it happens.
(It was around this time that he realized that this conversation sounded so much more logical and cogent within the confines of his mind, which was where he should've let it stay dormant at, in the first place)

Cutie (incredulous look on her face, wondering what sort of weirdos still walk the earth): I don't know, I am just used to it, I guess.

Dorky (shrugging his shoulders): Well, ookay. Guess it takes a little getting used to!

Don Juan he may not be, but he knew, thankfully, when he should shut his mouth without causing himself any further embarassment, while the other school of thought that was also in session within his head was trying to convince him that he'd already hit the pits and that since redemption was not possible after having unleashed the demons of stupidity, he might as well go all the way and continue the conversation.

The conservative school of thought won, as the Cutie drifted off into sleep on the adjoining seat, dreaming no doubt, about Prince Charming, who had a crew cut, and could come up with better starting lines of conversation, than something involving haircare, something about coalition politics or about Ishihara test frames to detect colour blindness.

He went back to his reading, and listening to music and continued the journey, not knowing where his next mis-adventure would come from.

Epilogue:What actually happened next was that DG commenced blogging about the entire fiasco, right during the journey after cutie nodded off. Cutie subsequently woke up, and on her own volition, offered him some chocolate, and they got talking and spoke for an hour. Pleasant, enjoyable conversation ensued, the kind that you could expect between two strangers who would never expect to meet each other again, and he eventually got off the bus, when his stop arrived, to head back to where he used to be.