Another day in Paradise

Note: I wrote this piece about three months back, and now feel like putting it up here. I was in a negative frame of mind when I wrote this, and the cynical attitude is all-abound.

I’m feeling low, and this had been so for quite some time now, the whole day and even prior to that. I thought some cooking might cheer me up, so went out to grab some chicken breast.

A few minutes later I found myself at Zawar and sons’, looking at the butcher holding the bird by its wings. He slit its throat and left it on a platform, and went back to skin another bird for this gentleman – an anxiously waiting and blabbering whiner who wanted to know the exact weight of the chicken leg he was about to get. Yeah, to shove it up your ass you need to know all the dimensions precise or it may produce undesired adverse effects.

I remembered the last time I was at a butcher’s; I was terrified. This time I was feeling nothing as the bird turned into a lump of healthy-white-meat in front of me. It got objectified, and was turned into something useful, a triumph of man’s intellect.

Anyway, I got my stuff, thanked him, and then all of a sudden decided to have a hair cut. Oh! What an eventful and adventurous life!! I could have been comfortably headed to my home, but here I was now, sitting in front of a man who had a razor against my neck. He started talking and immediately I regretted my decision. The first sentence he spoke was, “I’m from Bombay, served ten years there.” Served what, a prison sentence? I knew I’d be having a great half an hour ahead.

The man spoke of hair care, skin care, politics, Bombay life, and what not. I was thinking about the hair I was giving away. Adjacent to this shop, some time back, a bird also gave away some parts of its body, the parts which I render non-consumable. Can a bird eat my hair?

The chicken is marinating and I’ll cook it in the evening. May be then I’ll feel better.