Till death do us part

“Ouch, there are the cramps again” Anju moaned as she sat down on the chair clutching her stomach.

Jai looked at her with a scowl on his face “Well, I have been telling you to go see our doctor but you never listen to me”

“It’s not a big deal really, must be acidity or something. You better finish shaving and get ready quickly. You are already running late for work”

“You have been having these cramps pretty frequently these days. Let me take an appointment with Dr.Vasudha for this evening” said Jai as he dabbed some cologne on his face.

He stepped out of the bathroom and stood still for a moment holding on to the wall for support.

“What is it, Jai ?”

“I don’t know but my head spins sometimes and I feel like I am about to throw up. It must be an attack of Vertigo”

“You have complained about this the past few days. You need to see a doctor as well” Anju said.

“I guess it is due to all the stress at work. It’s been hectic lately as I need to close this tender I am working on as quickly as possible. Hopefully, it should be over by this week” he answered as he picked up his laptop to leave for work.

“Alright, you take care ok ?. And try and come home soon” said Anju as she saw him to the door.

Jai got into his car and started for work. After a few minutes of driving, he stopped in front of a clinic. After having parked the car, he entered the clinic and walked into the doctor’s cabin.

“Hi Vasudha”

“Jai, what took you so long, I have been waiting for you !!” the lady in white, replied.

“Looks like it is working” said Jai “she has been having them more frequently over the last few days. How much longer will it take ?”

“Another couple more times and it should be done” said Vasudha

“I am bringing her to you this evening. Give her the same stuff you gave her last time. I just want to put an end to this as quickly as possible. I can’t stand being away from you for long.” Jai said.

“Don’t worry darling, we will have to wait for another week or so. After that, it’s just you and me” said Vasudha.

“By the way, what is the stuff that you have been giving her ?” enquired Jai

“Thallium” replied Vasudha

Back home, Anju put on a pair of gloves, went into the bathroom and came out with the bottle of after-shave lotion.

“Eight years in this hell hole being married to a control freak…” cursed Anju under her breath as she unscrewed the cap of the bottle.

“At least the bastard has insurance worth 50 lakhs” she continued cursing as she carefully poured some white powder into the cologne.

“A few weeks of this stuff should take care of him and it’s already been a week. A couple more and I shall be single, free and rich” Anju screwed the cap back on and replaced the bottle back on the shelf.

“Thanks to whoever discovered potassium cyanide” she told herself as she walked back to the living room.



[Epilogue: Well, what started out as an attempt to write a tale of romance ended up being a dark and slightly creepy story. See, I just can’t write romance. But then, this isn’t so bad either]

Kudos

Time for some good news and bad news - first the good news, ISRO scientists have made the nation proud with the successful launch of chandrayan. The bad news – they forgot to put Mamatha Bannerji onboard.

On inquiring with ISRO on this omission, the spokesperson’s response was “Not far enough”. Apparently, ISRO plans to start work on an even grander space shuttle and will make sure that Ms.Bannerji gets on it. The intended destination for the new shuttle is the Sun.

Until then let’s rejoice this milestone that India has achieved in the realm of space exploration.

Ps: I am currently suffering from a disease known as 'Writer's Block' and words refuse to flow out. I hope to get out of it soon. I may be a little irregular in my blogging for sometime to come. So all you people out there who don't read my blog, you can continue to not do so.

Spirit of science lives on

It is that time of the year when people with two or less brain cells are rewarded for their outstanding achievements in science, (‘outstanding’ that is, like a baboon’s bottom in a Miss Universe pageant.)

Yes, dear folks, the Ig Nobel prizes for the year 2008 have been announced.

Ig Nobel 2008

Check out the prize for work on cognitive science, a Japanese research team showed that slime moulds can find their way through mazes. This is something we Indians have known for a long time. The slime moulds found in India are way smarter than those in Japan. Leave aside mazes, the moulds here find their way right into parliament. Let’s see you top that, Japanese goo !!!

And now to the ground breaking work in Biology where a team showed that fleas on dogs jump higher than fleas on cats. After having completed this momentous task, the team has decided to spend the rest of the year scratching themselves.

The research that concerns me most is the one on Coco Cola. Two teams were awarded the Ig Nobel in Chemistry. One team found that Coco Cola was an effective spermicide while the other team showed just the opposite. I don’t even want to think about how they went about researching this but my bet is that they worked very closely with the team which was awarded the Economics prize. Anyway, I believe that as long as men stick to just drinking coke, they will be ok.

The physics award went to the research which showed that heaps of string and hair will tangle up in knots eventually. Personally though I feel it would have been a lot more useful if they tried to find out if heaps of string already in knots would eventually untangle themselves and if it works on tongues too (that would surely help me)

Of course, there are awards given away in other areas as well. But I dare not mention all of them here because you may find it hard to resist laughter.

And that could be dangerous if you are drinking coke...


[In case you missed my last year's Ig Nobel update, here it is -
Pushing the frontiers of science ]