Thursday 13 August 2009

The Monalisa Smile.


TRING, TRING !!! his mobile is ringing; but his sluggish brain realises it only after several rings. Then the phone dies.

He opens his weighty eyelids with intricacy. He stares hard at the mobile screen and finds the missed-call number and suddenly his sluggishness disappears into heightened alert.

“Why does my wife have to call me at this unholy hour?” He mumbles to himself and turns his attention to the clock.

“Oops, its 11? How come? I had set an alarm for 8”, he realises he had set the alarm for 8am, but without switching on the alarm. He himself was ashamed of his Inanity.

This is how he woke last Friday and Fridays being a holiday in his part of the world, he escaped dire consequences of his notorious inanity. Of late, he had come to empathize with his father; It was true when he called him, “the laziest of all bums to have walked the planet”.


“Am I forgetting something?”, he felt a strange sensation of bewilderment. He appeared like Aamir Khan in Gajani, in the climax scenes. He scratched his head hard, yet it yielded no results. He gave up pondering.

He switched on his laptop and allowing it to boot, then sleepily walked to the loo and after emptying his bursting bladder, came back to find a popped chat window. It was His wife with an unpleasant greeting.

Badukoose”( a Kerala way of calling someone an idiot ),

“What da, my darling, my life”, he replied.

“No, don’t talk to me, you again forgot”

“Did I? What this time now?”

“See, that’s all about you. Your responsibilities end the moment I am Pregnant, huhh. After that it’s all me, right?”

“honey, why so much fuss. What happened? You know that you shouldn’t take so much tension. God’s sake, endu patti(what happened?)

“You don’t remember?”

“Of course, I do remember, but. Tell me”

“I was supposed to have my checkups and Scans today morning and you promised to call, didn’t you?”

“Oh, I am so sorry. But you won’t believe what happened”

“What happened?”

“No you tell me, how did it go? How was the scan? Sorry, I couldn’t sleep the whole night thinking about it.”

“Liar, you would have snored the way to morning. Everything is fine. No worries. What happened to you this morning?”

” What happened!!”His sounded puzzled.

“You said something happened.”

”Ohh, ya, my boss called me and asks me to finish that report and e-mail him urgently before 11 am. Some urgent meeting it seems. I was tied, darling. Sorry that’s why.”

”God only knows the truth. I am sure you would have forgotten the significance of this month. Already Haven’t you?”.

A momentary pause; he tries his best to recall.

“Whats so special about this month? Oh, ya, Eureka, Eureka,I remember.” He speaks with excitement.

”Valentine’s Day, Right? how can I forget. I was planning a surprise this time.” He thanks heaven that this chat happened.

“No. See.”

” Your parent’s anniversary?” He makes a wild guess.

“I won’t tell you, find it yourself” She gets very emotional.

” I remember, I do, I think your sister’s anniversary, right?” He tries his best to sound funny.

“Arun, you should never do this to your wife, never.”

” Shalini, what happened now? Why are you making me feel so guilty and terrible? Tell it to me; you know how much I hate suspense.”

“You forgot. Seriously? I don’t believe this.”

” Now, tell me, Honey. You know all these stress, tension with recession. My memory has become week.”(Recession is indeed such an exceptional excuse).

“Tell me honey.” he begs to her, trying to cheer her; He understands how important it’s for her to be cheerful. She was 6 months pregnant.

”God, I pray to god that you should be born a woman in your next birth. It’s your wife’s birthday this month, for god’s sake.”

He is stunned. He looks at her framed photograph beside the laptop, marvelling her enigmatic smile. The Monalisa Smile.He ponders for few minutes and then calls her.



P.S: I was looking at the painting of Mona Lisa, and the reason behind that puzzling smile.What would be in her mind when the portrait was being made. What would be her thoughts. And then this story.

26 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh My God! That so real! Great Job!

And thanks for linking my New Blog's post on your previous post!

ZB said...

Thanks for reading. and thanks for your thanks.Thanks:))

R. Ramesh said...

the mona lisa smile..how original..and look at the plastic smiles on some faces...hey good post buddy..cheers

Neha said...

ZB, thank goodness ur blogger's block didn't last for long...just loved this post...very humorous...I am sure my husband will definitely pat ur back for this one as you ve written what he goes thru :)

Ire said...

Cool post! I enjoyed reading this!

Sakshi said...

There you beat all the historians in the world to solve this mystery! hail ZB the man who can read a smile :)

ZB said...

@Ramesh: Thanks buddy. But was the smile on Mona lisa original? Who would know? I doubt!!:))

@Neha:Haha, thanks, All men would empathize with this. Glad that you liked. :)

@Nikki: Thanks for calling it a 'cool' post. Cheers:))

@ Sakshi: haha thanks for the compliments. Though i meant in the story that i would never understand that enigmatic smile, not just of Mona lisa, but of every woman.Thanks:))

Aparna said...

ZB you are back! Hurray!
Great post. The mystery behind the enigmatic smile can never be solved.
Hope Arun does not commit any such blunders in future. As far as men are concerned, you guys can never read us women. We are unfathomable.

le embrouille blogueur said...

Play along dude ... you cannot give in so easily .... lol !!

Zeba said...

I read somewhere that Mona Lisa is a self portrait!!! Cool or what?? Loved your write up. So very typical!!! Hehe

sujata sengupta said...

That was great, very typical male, the forgetting, the white lies, the blaming women for making them feel guilty..you have brought all of it out so well.just loved it. So finally when is the family joining you?

anamika said...

I guess u have the ability to come up with any write up .I wonder how many stories idea must be revolving around your mind every day.

ZB said...

@Aparna: Hurray...Thanks. Arun is always committing blunders. He dotes Shakespeare in saying, "life is a comedy of errors". Thanks, i am glad that you liked the post. CHeers:))

@LEB: Thanks dude. I mirror your thoughts. cant givein so easily. :)

@Zeba: Monalisa is self portrait? But. da vinci looked like her?No.Thanks:))

ZB said...

@Sujata: Thanks. My family is likely to join next month end, or oct first week. :))

@Anamika: Thanks. Not many. I create it when the need comes. :))

Chicky said...

=)) =)) =))
You guys are in such constant fear of forgetting dates that are important to your wife, that you even think of them while looking at a painting! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
And Arun again... :)

Dhanya said...

Aaaaahhhh! Again I thought it was about you :) Very real. Loved it! :D

... And very cute!

Hey, totally out of context here but isnt yours a love marriage ???

ZB said...

@Kaddu: Ya i forget dates, but i remember my wife's birthday. Only bcoz she keeps reminding me quite in advance. Thanks:))

@Dhanya: No, actually we thought ours was a love marriage, but during the marriage we realised that we had no love for each other. We were getting married out of the belief that we were in love. but it was too late and we were on our way to registrars office.yet,we tried to stop but gave in coz everyone thought that we were in love. so after marriage we were hardly in love for some time, we ddnt even hate each other, it was so bad.

.then slowly we realized that we do indeed loved each other. it took some time...it happened slowly, one step at a time.And then slowly we started loving each other. So, its a graph. Whatever you want to call it. Thanks:))

Gayathri said...

yeah!!monalisa's smile is truly enigmatic..i remember 'da vinci code'!

ZB said...

Gayath3: Ya, but i feel more about Mona lisa is all hype. Whats so enigmatic? if you see my photo, you would wonder if i am smiling or sulking. but noone cares to keep in the Louvre.:)

Its i guess, mainly for its history and the notoriety surrounding its theft.

Chicky said...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
"Gayath3"!
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Dude! It would have taken such a LOTTTTTTTTTTT of effort na, to type 1 extra letter! :D Style! :D

HaRy!! said...

Flash Fiction? wow! the tag really matches with the story! :) somehow the husband pleading to his wife matches in all areas of life i guess:)! Thats end reality eh! hows it with yu ZB? have a reminder kinda thing..he he.. tak care..not seen yu around ma blog lately? busy?

H a R y

Sucharita Sarkar said...

Nice story! But based on fact, or fiction?

Gymnast said...

WHere is that picture ZB , that i see on the dashboard?

Sweet post. I always forget everybody's birthdays , so can totally empathise with you.

Oh yes..women are most enigmatic creatures , me being a girl myself , amalways puzzled by other girls.

ZB said...

@Kaddu: Hehe, thanks:))

@Hary: Thanks dude:D

@Sucharita: Thanks,Based on fiction..:))

@Gymnast:That was my wife. I put it for sometime to give the meaning to the story. But i havent asked her permissions, so deleted it later. She would never agree for her photo to be put here. Thanks:))

The Unsure Ascetic said...

great post as usual ZB. I also liked your reply to Dhanya's comment about how you believed you were in love. Cool man. Very romantic.

P said...

I still dont understand the fuss being made of Mona Lisa! I mean honestly! I think her smile was watery at best and she posed like that cause who on earth can really smile for how ever long it takes to make a painting!! has anyone thought that she was just doing it to cut her facial muscles some slack?? honestly!