I once knew a man named Bob. I still know him though. Or do I? Is Bob the same Bob that he was when I knew him? Also, do I truly know Bob? What does it mean to know someone? Well, anyway I kinda knew him. So did a lot of other folks. Bob was well-known. Not too well-known, otherwise you’d know him too. But, you don’t. That’s why you’re reading about Bob.
Bob was neighbor of ours. By `our`, I mean the people who lived next door to him. Not ours as in someone we owned. We’d always smile at Bob and wish him a good morning. Unless it was dusk. Then we’d say ‘How was the day, Bob?’. We’d even change the routine sometimes and ask him ‘How’s it hanging, Bob?’ Or ‘Any plans for the weekend, Bob?’. And Old Bob would always reply in the same way, “My name is not Bob. It’s Ghanshyam”. We’d walk off chuckling, that’s so like Old Bob. Always with his head in the clouds.
Bob was a bachelor but his wife thought otherwise. She was kind to Bob. In public too. For example, she never murdered Bob in living daylight. That to me is a great kindness. You don’t murder people when it’s a nice sunny day outside. At least give them a chance to enjoy the nice weather. If it’s a cloudy, dull rainy day one might allow it, but murder on a clear day? Over my dead body, I always say. Still, Bob’s wife was a good woman. Even though she was prone to anger from time-to-time. She would get angry about the government or Bob not cleaning his trousers after a game of Catch the Fish in Your Trousers. It would enrage her whenever someone called her `Bob’s Wife’. The nerve. It negated her whole existence, her entire being, her thoughts, her memories, her ideas, her biases, her emotions to the singular concept of her marital status. Also, because she wasn’t Bob’s wife. She was Ghanshyam’s.
Bob was an amazing bowler. Not the one who knocks down 10 little wooden white things. He was more of the sort to knock down 3 tall wooden white things. He loved to bowl spin and spin balls. Isn’t it weird how a person who makes a ball spin is called a spinner but a person who throws it is called Shoaib Akhtar? Bob was an off-spinner meaning he was off-target. In one particularly enjoyable match, Bob bowled 17 wides and gave away 20 byes. All in one over. He didn’t even get to complete the over. The umpire thought it prudent to end the over to spare Bob’s team further embarrassment.
It is believed that the true measure of a man comes from what he believes in. No one knows who believes it. Why do they believe such things without rhyme or reason? And why only men? Does it go for women too? Well anyway, let’s assume that society judges a man by what he believes in. Unless he believes in senseless things. Like ghosts or the zodiac or that toilet paper is better than the bidet. Bob was no exception. He believed in truth and discipline. Except on Fridays when he lied to his wife about the number of drinks he’d had. His wife could always sense that Bob was drunker than he said he was. But she didn’t care. She was too high on weed herself to fight. They made such a lovely couple on Fridays. As they always say, there’s nothing like mind-altering substances to bring lovers together. I wonder who they are and why are they always saying these weird things. Without any explanation or elaboration too. Would it kill them to add a little more detail to their speech? But, no, it’s always us who have to decipher the meaning.
Those fools.
