Sulekha.com and Penguin had launched a contest called India Smiles. I thought of participating in it. That was in Feb 2005. Did I win the contest? Must you even ask? OF COURSE not...

It is Monday and every moment feels like you’ve stepped on doggy-do while jogging. It has happened. I am horribly late for my flight. The cabbie tries to soothe my nerves and announces that for an extra tip he will take me to the airport in record time. He weaves through the traffic and turns up the volume of the radio. Himesh Reshmaiyya’s song is blaring on the FM channel. The cabbie waits like a child trying to join friends who are skipping rope. Unsure of where he will join the song. He tries to copy the master’s own sound in some spots but the lyrics move too rapidly for him. He waits till Himesh sings the bit that all of us wait for, “eNk baaNr aaNja aaNja aaNja aaNja aaaNja aaNja aaaN”.

The doctor’s office called me last Friday about scheduling my annual medical check up. I don’t like it when they do that. I must be on some kind of telemarketeer’s list. They seem to know everything. When you need a new magazine that could change your life. Or when it is your “last chance” to donate twenty bucks to some obscure charity. But asking someone to call me and remind me to go for my annual medical check up was scary.

My name is Abhijit. But that is not the only way people address me. Depending on the name you use to call out to me I can tell how long you’ve known me. Like an old bookmark jammed between the pages of time I discover my past when someone calls me “Rana”. That’s what I was called by my parents until I was old enough to be sent to school.