9th March, 2005

Bang at 9.24 am when I had hardly finished brushing my buck-teeth, a call came through. My cell phone was nowhere to be found in my shabby burrow. After searching high and low , rather low and lower in the burrow, I pacified it by picking it up, like a crying baby. Remembering the etiquette class, I "smiled" into the cell,"Whats up, Doc?" Imagine my plight when Doctor Dolittle, who actually does quite a lot for his name, announced," Congrats!, you babbling hare, you gonna be an uncle,bro! You got a nephew..." "NO!," I exclaimed,"you must be kidding.Like that day when you fooled Mr. Foster ' The Aussie Kangaroo', into believing that the poodle in his pouch was his Joey!" "Aam serious maan, your bro, Viny , the beaver, has become a father", he said in his most nasal 'brotherly' accent. I couldn't believe him. My eyes welled up, I had the sniffles. Then tears started started down my huge cheeks. Suddenly I remembered the chopped onions in the kitchen. " Thats awesome,catch you later, doc!" Click! (You see I slept through the last part of the class when they taught about 'closing gracefully')
After breakfast while searching for my helmet, I thought of how a young beaver, one year younger to me, who barely had a moustache, who shaved till it hurt to complete his French beard, that fellow biker, was a Father now!! I wondered when he would mature and asked him once, " A year after you , Bugs, simple logic!" he used to say. "High hopes," I chuckled " even at 70 my grand children would be shouting at me, ' Grow up grand pa, this is serious stuff. Please dont play with your respirator switch!!' " And we both laughed till we couldn't see the road ahead ahead due to watery eyes. Finally it took a cop and a fine for speeding, to control our emotions. Though by then the cop was laughing away with his share.
Then I thought of the baby, will he be like his father, gregarious, adventurous, a born fighter with strong will power, a hard working fellow or like his mother - calm, unperturbed, happy-go-lucky, afraid of the lizards? Just then Princess Una, the beautiful angel whom I adore telepathically called to say that he was 'the cutest bundle of joy'.
I rushed along to visit my nephew...