Walkin on sunshine

It had been a hectic day for me. Firstly, the HP printer packed in and took my morning with it. Neither Mr Hewlett nor Mr Packard was anywhere I could find for a nice casual chat about birds, bees, and flowers. And you know that topic, specially when your whole morning is – OK nevermind, just add the words as you go by.

Then I came to office and the dreaded UK Visa form was waiting for me there. If your main reason for visiting the UK is to see family you must complete this form,it says on top. Now lets weigh things out. Are these guys going to meet family or to see the country? Oh maybe the daughter there – oh wait! She was here two months ago. They are going to see Wales! But they intend to tag their daughter along and she is sponsoring... Lets toss a coin on this, for this is beyond me.

Could the people behind this form be divinely inspired too? Cause I know the bunch at Chennai are prize winning “technical bastards”, and there is no way I could work out which form to fill, you know who on the other end will go nit picking and will write “I understand family visits are important.... But it strikes me that your main purpose of visit is tourism...”

And you tell me to work this out without inspiration. If you do, then you haven't dealt with UK Deputy High Commission in Chennai. Things were not going well, and my clients were getting impatient – they think I could divine things out without seeing any documentation. Anyway its resolved and they pay the fat fee and depart with hopes. Good luck mates.

Enter the people who think we are a 24/7 on call Samaritan help line. Can this day get any worse? Some quickie and they are off too. My poor secretary was sweating, me at the end of my tether, and here comes a call from a potential customer. It turns out he needs to go to Canada and has a business plan ready for us too. What is this business plan? Find him clients for a commission – “you could have customers interested in....” No we are sorry, we don't have customers interested in your services, besides we are not a job agency, says my PA. Off he goes, with some apologies. Things were not looking bright indeed.

Lets go for a fag and some coffee I think. And the mobile rings at the most inconvenient moment, fag in one hand and the coffee in the other I need a third hand to get the phone. “Here hold this for a moment, and don't stick your mouth in there for I don't know what was in it last night” I tell the person next to me for I need to free a hand to get the phone. “Hello, this is blah blah..” turns out some nice people with a nubile daughter interested in me as a potential scape goat to take over their karma. Lets be nice, though I cant be a million miles from being Mr Nice right now. “OK, OK, OK, thank you, sure I'll be there”. There goes my afternoon too.

Made a quick lunch, returned to office to type out the visa letter for our good customer who thinks we are Samaritan help line. Over with that too. Its 3.10, and need to be at the young lady's place soon. Lets get moving, and arrived there in the nick of time. Do I have a plan here? I mean what am I going to talk to them? Well its not going to be about birds and bees as I feared they might already know these things by now, besides I already had that conversation with Messrs Hewlett & Packard this morning, telling them what it feels like to be s****** early in the morning by a cheap printer.

They turned out to be a nice bunch despite of my initial misgivings. Girl was OK too, mind you. Just that I was past caring. Usually I am quite good at these situations, except I was not myself this day, after that accursed printer did my day in this morn. Where do I start? Nice Teddy bear you have there.. no that's a non-starter. What a nice dress you have on there – they might think I am a sex maniac, ogling all that even before things get rolling. Finally I settled on (Baruch) Spinoza, I know, but I just didn't know any better. It turned out the poor girl did not even know if Spinoza was vegetable or mineral. Shit.

Well there is a silver streak in every dark cloud – and you'd sure find it when the lightning strikes you. So I come home before 6.00, which was good. And what did I find there? The two cat bastards have ventured into the nearby bush and have to fetch them from there.

Change dress and off I go into the spotted viper infested bush to cajole them to come home for dinner. Guess what, they thought I was sport and had the time of their lives at my expense.

Once in a book titled That's Life, I read an article aptly titled Wilde East. It tells you all about train robberies and accident fatalities in India and advices you “next time when you wait on the platform and see that next from Clapham Junction is 5 minutes late, and curse, just thank gods you are not in India.” Valuable advice indeed, except I was waiting for the spotted viper to make a social call....

And you thought you had a bad day