Sunday, April 4, 2010

Hebbun and the curse of the light pole

No, we were not drunk. Nor were we high on anything. Moments of inspired randomness in good old Gainesville gave us these gems.

When something was truly awesome, it signified something more than heavenly. It was ... wait for it... hebbun. Or Hay-1. Or Hay-bun. For maximum effect, you pause a bit, Barney-style, after the "Hay" and then say the "bun" or "one" slowly.

Or there was this discussion about Noah and his ark. Being an engineer makes you think that you obviously know better than others. So, your meagre knowledge of probability makes you wonder about the odds of finding land when wandering around aimlessly. However, bouts of speech impediments prompt you wonder about the merits of "wanderously aimering". Your flatmate corrects you that they were actually "aimeresly wandering". You proclaim the 49,983th time that you "have not lost it", because you "never had it to begin with".

An old story about a professor who taught me in my undergrad in his heavily Marathi-accented English created a new form greeting. The same word is a semi-official nickname - "Shay".

Playing cards gets a new meaning. You actually play catch with credit cards.

You invent a new game with bottles of water, a foam ball, a rack of shoes, a bicycle. It's competitive too.

And then those night-time walks between the two desi "adda"s - Park 16 and Arbor Park give you newfound understanding about the mysteries of nature: the electric light pole near the Sun-bay bus stop is cursed. Whenever any of us walked under it, it toggled - it switched off it was on, or switched on if it was off. Sometimes, it toggled back after we had gone away from it's influence zone. There were non-believers, but Abhishek and I had empirical proof. The curse was known to follow us sometimes. It appeared when we were in the Florida Keys. Sometimes it followed us separately, Abhishek sighted it when he was with his friends. Recently, I had a sighting in France. Trust me guys, the electric light poles are cursed. Or maybe they are sending us a message.

3 comments:

  1. i was a witness to the light pole thing...more than the light poles i think its you who is the culprit..you have some electromagnetic field or something :P

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  2. Well, it's definitely not me, cos Abhishek experienced independent of me, I have witnessed it independent of him. So, the curse exists and it's currently international

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  3. you passed the thing to him too!!! ;)

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