Flower chor!! Flower chor!!

Ah!!! I thought things would have changed. It's been a long long time that I heard such tales from my Mom. Let's ponder over the background of the story.

Every Indian house does some form of Pooja, every morning, for which one of the most important ingredient is "Flowers". The flowers have to be fresh, i.e, freshly plucked. And the most important part is, the collected lot should at-least have 2 varieties of flowers (varying by color or species). The fun starts every morning. If you could fix a big camera over my colony, one could see people getting out of their houses just before the sunrise, with small bags, determined...

Their mission: Collect flowers for Pooja.

Target: Everyone else's garden.

We also have a few flowering plants inside our compound, and Mom recently noticed that everyday the number of flowers on our plants kept diminishing. And, on other days, she failed to find a single flower for our Pooja on our plants. It was obvious that someone was stealing our flowers. Although we somehow managed to get our share of flowers from other sources, Mom took up the responsibility to catch the erring neighbor and confront them, or may be teach them a lesson.

She needed a partner. And who else would be a better accomplish other than Auntie who was a close friend of Mom. She was on the ground floor, and Mom on the second floor. The plan was chalked out. Everyday, Auntie would try to wake up early in the morning, hoping that she would wake up before the THIEF reached our compound, watch the plants for a few minutes and alert Mom if she saw anything suspicious.

Everyday, Auntie and Mom used to wake up early in the morning, and kept an eye on our plants. Mom, from the terrace, and Auntie through the windows. For the first few days, the thief was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps, he made his errands too early in the morning. After a few watchful days, the thief was finally caught. They were actually two (From the same house, Husband and Wife). To be sure enough before deciding on their punishments, Mom and Auntie wanted to be check that the culprits came and assaulted our plants daily. So, they continued for a few more days, and it was established that the THIEVES actually came everyday and robbed us of our flowers.

The plan: The next time when Mom would see them getting their hands dirty, they would be washed off by a bucket of cold water from the terrace.

But, the idea was finally dropped, considering...

• The culprits were from our own colony, and we knew them.
• It was winter time and Mom felt that the punishment would be a bit harsh.
• We also used to collect our flower lot for the Pooja from our neighbors few years back when we were not the proud owners of a few flowering plants.

What? What the heck!!!

Image source: Wikimedia Commons

People can be so stupid at times. Sometimes, we say or do stupid things, which would make even a donkey laugh out loud. However, there are certain situations where you tend to ignore them. For example, you would just ignore a stupid question from someone when you know that the person is perhaps sad about something, and not in the right state of mind.

But it's really irritating sometimes, when people ask stupid questions, whose answer they already know. The best example for this is when your phone rings, and the other person confirms first that it's actually you who answered. Of course, there are exceptions, but then, at times it's just so obvious that nobody else other than you could possibly answer the phone.

There was a guy, whose name I prefer not to mention. I had this habit of reading newspapers few years back. Whenever he walked into my room, and saw me reading the newspaper, we would go like this:

He: Hey, What are you doing?

Me: Reading newspaper (Obviously)

He: I can see that. Reading what in the newspaper.

Me: So and so article. (Guiding his vision towards that portion of the newspaper)

He: Hmm. What are you reading in that article?

Me: Well, you know, so and so happened. I was just reading that. (Should I read out loud)

What the heck!!! I don't have the habit anymore.

And it happened almost every time he saw me reading either the newspaper, a book or even listening to the radio. I mean, isn't this stupid? I could understand that he wanted to break the ice someway or the other, but didn't he have any another ice-breakers?

Perhaps this: "Oh, you are reading the newspaper! Did you see this article today?"

I would at-least not wonder if he was "BLIND".

There are other stupid questions as well. And the more frequently used one is:


Why do you like Ice cream so much? (Or anything else which I like/love)
It's not that I haven't tried explaining them. For example, a typical response to such a question would probably be something like: "Well, it's cold, it's sweet, and it comes in a variety of flavors".

But then, how do I respond to questions like: 
1. Why do you like cricket?
2. Why do you not like tennis?
3. Why do you have a Citibank credit card?
4. Why are you wearing a black shirt on such a warm day?
5. Wassup?

Ah!!! The last one is one of those, which I answer with a "NOTHING - Nothing at ALL".