Adventures of Sem - Part V

The day at work passed in a jiffy. It was 9pm in the night when Sem returned to his car in the parking lot. Even as he heard it unlock at a distance, the night security guard wished him a good night. Sem replied with a huge grin looking fondly at the exit & tickled within at the thought of being in the parking lot again! He was humming a loony tune & ruffling his hair.

He got inside the car & pushed the gym gear to the back seat. His long hours at work were costing him his gym routine. Within minutes, he was on his way back…even the traffic did not seem to bother him much & he even noticed the moon through his car window. By the time he reached home, it was 11:30 in the night. Sem went upstairs quickly & peeped through the balcony window. A few perched pigeons looked at him dismayed at being disturbed. He felt like shooing them all away, then thought how fond his folks back home are of feeding birds and let them be. The balcony on the other side was pitch dark. The door was ajar though & Sem reluctantly peeled himself away from the window & quickly settled down.

The next morning he got up pretty early-even before the alarm clock sounded. It was a nice fresh dewy morning. And his pets were dutifully making their wicked groaning noises in the balcony. Instinctively, he went out to shoo them away. He couldn’t help but notice, the door was shut now.

He brewed himself some nice black coffee & perched among his now there-now away pigeon friends facing the balcony on the other side. Girls, he thought, but quickly collected his expanding smile as the door on the other side yawned open…

Adventures of Sem - Part IV

Sem was a nice boy. Nice boys, for the uninitiated, are guys, a majority of whose friends, advisors, advised, buddies are girls, but who, somehow, do not have a girlfriend. They are invited to most of the weekend get-tos, with or without shopping involved, go to most ball parties, accompanied or accompanying and have a ton of buddies, girlfriends, their boyfriends and sometimes even their children included. Sometimes, they can even be found buying stuffed toys for girls ranging from grannies to babies, and their friends term them as nice, albeit a lil too nice to torture with a relationship.

Coming back to where we left our friend, he slept that night on his bean bag, only to be rudely woken up on the Monday morning by his cuckoo doorbell. He opened his eyes just in time to see the cuckoo rush back to the secret cubicle after coo-ing twice! Had he not hated his landlady for it…but stopped after he figured out how fond his niece, who used to visit him sometimes, was of that silly bird. He smiled at the bell and involuntarily shrugged his shoulders. By the time he reached the door, his ‘guest’ had left leaving a rolled up newspaper bill tucked at his door handle.

He picked up the scroll unfolded it and read the amount. Promptly he separated Rs 500 to hand over to the guard on his way to work. He was fond of Chotte, the guard and his affections (In this case) were reciprocated. His shirts (all branded) home sweets share on Diwali, etc went to Chotte who in turn dint mind paying Sem’s bills in time.

Sem washed, dressed, dabbed on some cologne & was all set (with his gelled spiky hair) to reach work. He liked to drive to work & claimed he hadn’t set foot in a local more than 4 times in his lifetime (that too in opposite traffic direction, mind it) A couple of years at work had helped him afford a brand new steel grey car!

He settled his glares and started to reverse his car. It was then that he saw her again…even as she passed by, right there, in front of his car…and confused as he was, he honked the car horn, not once, but twice in succession. The annoying echo filled the parking!

She turned around and glared at him. He was sure he saw her mumble something under her breath… “Why are girls so difficult…?” he sighed

Adventures of Sem - Part III

A stray feather floated lazily in front of his eyes. For an instance he thought of Forrest Gump, his mind tore him quickly to the thought of pigeons…aarghh! He looked helplessly at the slightly ajar window, which he cud not close without removing the cable wire that was too short to enter from any other crevice in the wall. Annoyed he pushed the sliding window open (with a thud) and with an expression just short of a Red Indian, readied himself, with a broom!


Hardly had he jumped out that he spotted a pair of curious eyes staring at him. Guess he had been too loud in his expression of anger. He felt slightly flushed. Settled the invisible stray hair strand atop his head, realized the very next moment his hands were soiled, n grinned sheepishly. He had studied in a guy’s college all through, he wasn’t, ahem, used to ‘attention’.


He dint dare look in that direction again. Quickly stepped back in n peeped out from behind the curtain. He caught a glimpse of her just leaving her balcony. “Duh”, said he, “who cares?”


As for the nest, it survived. We are sure the unborn chicken embryos chuckled at Sem when he flushed. They were egg-witness to the instant transition in his demeanor. The MBA had gone for a hike!


Sem went back to the newspaper and dumped himself on his bean bag. He wasn’t really reading. He found himself smiling to himself. “Gosh!” he needed some coffee…black, without a touch of milk, just as he liked it. He spent the remaining day drowned in the sitcom he so adored. He covered a couple of seasons for the nth time. The thought of the pair of eyes dint cross him even once again. It was a lazy weekend and it was just one more week before he left for his trekking trip next week.

Adventures of Sem - Part II

HE smiled at the beam of the morning sun that entered his room, tiny dust particles moving around in a cacaphony. It was a nice start of a weekend, jogging, he could always resume. He played with the dust particles for some time, before the MBA reminded him that there were no commensurate results to be achieved by the action. Shaken to reality, he left his cozy bed.

Sem had lived alone ever since he got this job in this respected conglomerate. After dabbling in finance, marketing & strategy, he had finally settled in this job in a respected company where he could pursue his dreams of M&A (the calling of the royal blood was hard to ignore) His childhood had been untouched & uneventful – basic , if we may call it that and it showed in the way he was. As a child he had been ‘ordinarily bright’ (as everyone of the clan was supposed to be) The court elders thought he was just the same as everyone else born in the era…hopes so trashed, they decided to call him ‘the same’ aptly shortened to Sem in the coming future to save the kingdom’s royal ink.

Walking up to the kitchen, Sem opened the window wide…a stench greeted him marking the freshly cleaned…err…remains of the pigeons. He closed it. He peeped to see where the eggs used to be, them realised there was no nest. Good riddance, shrieked the MBA, Sem, we think, missed them. Both however, promptly fixed up some toasts & brewed some black coffee and he sat downt to devour them. He flipped channel after channel scooting over the reality shows of the world, and finally put up some random music channel & buried himself in the morning’s ET.

He thought he could still hear some commotion outside. He reluctantly pulled aside the curtain and peeped out…

Adventures of Sem - Part I

(This story is purely a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely a coincidence. The author shall not be liable for any repurcussions of such similarity whatsoever)

Once upon a time in Mumbai, lived a boy called Sem (pronounced as same). Sem, an MBA by qualification had always wanted to do something profound for his countrymen through mergers & acquisitions. Now that the era of kings & their kingsmen was long gone, he could do little to have a “yudhh” with a “sena” to win a territory, so the pigeons, which he had reared since childhood (training them as his secret messengers) were of not much use to him. Given their free time, the pigeons, perched in his hearth & home, procreated & recreated. Therefore, Sem was surrounded with pigeons day in & day out.

The era of the kings had long gone, the newer generations of pigeons used to huddle together in evenings & make grumbling sounds at the loss of luxuries’ tales that their grannys told them. After a point in time, Sem started to get annoyed. Slowly his despication grew as he began to notice the mess created by his noisy disciples. The volcano would one day erupt. Sem was seething inside...!

One day, when Sem opened the window to take in a breath of fresh air, a hush of wings fluttered past his face. Irritated, Sem had barely got over the assault when he noticed… Lo n behold... “two dandis” and three eggs lying on them!

Sem & the MBA in him went into deep thoughtful discussion! What poverty, Sem said..., what real estate cost escalations, the MBA argued…Sem’s heart went out to them…the MBA in him delegated the clearing of them slums to the bai.

The next morning, Sem got up late, not disturbed by the grumbling pigeons at 4 am. He had missed his jogging routine. Little did he know that over the next three months he will put on all the weight he had lost thanks to getting up early and jogging...!