"The Wheel of Time spins the Pattern of the Ages, threads being lives of men and women, cities and towns, nations and destinies. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. The patterns created can never be comprehended in full, but maybe we can see bits and pieces of it. And this is the only power we can wield to save ourselves from the Darkness within Shayol Ghul."

I took a long time buying Priya her birthday gift. Mostly because I couldn't make up my mind. I thought I would get a whole load of fluorescent stars to light up her room with, help her create galaxies and constellations on her ceiling: the idiot beat me to it, and bought the stars for herself. Thought I would make her into the heroine of a tiny comic book: sounded cliche, I've done it before for others. I surrendered to fate, in the end, and bought her Book 2 of the Wheel of Time: the only one she was missing to complete her collection.

Turned out to be a gift for myself as much for her: best sort of gifts really. Frankly, it's not all that great: not exactly an epic of great proportions, to wrap you in wonder and carry you far, far away from your room, like Tolkein does; but it aspires to be. It's not a fantastic legend, with creatures and characters far too fabulous to conceive of, with lands one longs to go to; but it aspires to be. However, it does have a compelling weapon that forces people to keep reading: a promise of a story. (Unlike that stupid book about some dumb dragon and an even dumber boy - Eragon - which was so obviously a Tolkein wannabe. The story was boring, the hero maddeningly hard headed and stupid, and worst of all - the pompousness of the author, Christopher Paolini, seeped through the words: 'Oh, yeah, this is a great story isn't it? I'm only 19, you can make out from the general immaturity in the story, but I made tons of money from this book. Fabumungo, isn't it?." Point being: it was a loser of a book.)

The Wheel of Time is the sort of book I would love to buy my nephews. It makes me wish I was in a different place, with a purpose. In love with a fierce warrior, who fights battles with all he has. A fierce, bloody, feared warrior, who is chivalrous and dreamy. A bunch of friends with weird quirks who take me off on adventures. Family who are respected and a bloodline to make one proud of one's inheritance. Life with everything super intense: love, romance, adventure, friendship and everything that comes with it.

I wish I was a book. Not the characters, but the book. Life would be so much easier if you were a book. Actually, maybe we are all in a book. A very complicated, intense story, maybe we're being read by someone.

Now that's a thought.

Cheers. Claps. Shouts. Laughter. Someone throws a paper cup whose graceful trajectory ends in meeting the sufficiently hard surface of a manager's scalp.

Yep, we're watching the 20Twenty finals, India vs Pakistan, on widescreen in the cafe. I check my phone after the first innings and find 7 missed calls in my register, 6 of which I knew, straightaway, would be from my dearest ma and pa.

The 7th call came from a mildly interesting source. Interesting because the source had declared itself isolated from all communication with me, mildly because, well, it wasn't terribly interesting anymore.

So, I sat there, sipping my cardamom chai, while the chai fellow spoke to me in passionate, fluent hindi, on the state of Indian bowling and the various bowlers he liked/disliked/thought had great hair. Maybe more, possibly, cause most of what he said went over my head.

And I thought, alright, after it did give me a call, what the hell, might as well call it back and say, hey wassup with call. And so I look around, and my colleague passes me her phone with a knowing smile.

'Hello,' it picks up the call with it's usual weird intonation.
'You called,' I say.
'What?.. No, I didn't.'
'Yes, you did, at 6.11..'
'No, no, I didn't..' and then, typically, it mumbles incoherently and keeps the phone down.

Interestingly, this particular specimen is supposed to be an intelligent sample of the male species, going by it's brand value: Pilani, XLRI, currently working for a well known company in a managerial position.

Isn't it sad that the heterosexual women have no other choice but to mate with such amazingly low quality counterparts of nature. No wonder mankind is going nowhere these days: the male strain must be getting stronger in our gene pool.

'Well, there's nothing much to do today.. '
'Not really...' Priya brightened. 'Wanna go Mirrors?'

Mirrors, I later learned, was a beauty salon somewhere in Banjara/Jubilee Hills (I think). And it was a pretty high fly place: a unisex salon, with separate quarters for men and women.

'You could get a protein pack done..'

I brightened, in turn. Display products/services describing them with the words 'fruity,' 'natural,' 'aromatic and soothing,' 'nutrient packed' and the like and I'll fall for it. It's nicer when people use words like 'tea tree oil' and 'strawberries.'

So we called and made an appointment for two (never went to a big shot salon where we made appointments and all) and left. It was a very posh looking place and the receptionist greeted us politely.

'Appointment for two? Oil massage, protein pack and a haircut? You'll be wanting Pradip, yes?'

Pradip turned out to be the expert in hair care at that place. He did the following things:

a) gave me an oil massage
b) applied a protein pack
c) gave me a haircut

Strangely enough, contrary to what I expected, Pradip was extremely gentle and good with everything he did. The massage put me to sleep (the idiot woke me up to ask me how it was), the protein pack was ever so cooling, and the haircut was gently done. Much more gentle than any woman who has handled my hair before.

I think I'll go back shortly. This time for a full body massage. (But I think its as much to scandalise my mother who was horrified by the very thought of some guy giving me a haircut. Should be fun to let her know that I had a full body massage too).