Agastya’s subordinate-to-be—submitted, on the subject of the plague, a thirty-page memorandum to the Head of her Department. To each his own, particularly in a vibrant democracy.
Love-Like-Hate-Adore isn’t as well-known a game as it should be. It is a splendid time-killer because while squandering away one’s most precious resource, it permits one at the same time to rove from one object of one’s lust to another to gauge whether—and to what extent—they reciprocate one’s affections—and indeed, deep in one’s heart, what one oneself truly feels for them. It—LLHA—also encourages one to spell correctly. On a piece of paper, one writes the name of whoever one is idly itching for at that moment, or on that day. For instance:
LINA NATESAN THOMAS
Beneath the line that one draws under the name of the lustee, one writes one’s own:
LINA NATESAN THOMAS
BHUPEN RAGHUPATI
One then sifts through the names and strikes out the letters in common. Thereafter, on the letters left over, one bounces, in order, the choices of Love, Like, Hate or Adore. The sentiment at hand at the end of the name is what the person truly feels for the other below or above the line. Emotionally, it is, so to speak, the bottom line.
LINA NATESAN THOMAS
BHUPEN RAGHUPATI
Lina Natesan Thomas likes Bhupen Raghupati. Bhupen Raghupati adores Lina Natesan Thomas. Vexed, the Chief Revenue Divisional Commissioner, groping for loopholes, wondered whether she—Bunswali—spelt ‘Natesan’ with an ‘h’. Wouldn’t that transform the outcome? He would’ve so liked the stumps of both names to nucleate to Adore, to skim, like a flat stone across water, past the choices Love, Like and Hate, and swoop jubilantly down on the last, somewhat like a buxom, burly, imperious woman, the chairperson of his thoughts of the past eight weeks, descending on her timorous adorer. Whenever both the names climaxed in Adore, he felt that the deities had beamed refulgently on his itch of the month.
LINA NATESHAN THOMAS like
BHUPEN RAGHUPATI adore
His visitor, Rajani Suroor, cleared his throat for the second time. The Commissioner transferred his blank, baleful stare from his memo pad to him, to his modish, beige kurta, his wire-frame spectacles, the golden bracelet on a hairy wrist, the black-and-white, wavy, dreadfully groovy hair that Suroor, narcissistically, fondled without pause, the sardonically respectful, damn annoying half-smile. This fool, the Commissioner felt, should massage him, long and slow, glisteningly, with mustard oil; when he’d been sated, he’d lumber up off the mat and with his belt, thrash Suroor into hushed rashers of crimson flesh; then he’d come all over whatever remained of his smirk.
For Lina Natesan Thomas, the plague was altogether a graver subject.
Confidential
By Registered Post
From
The Junior Administrator (Under Training)
In the Ministry of
Heritage, Upbringing & Resource Investment
New
—
Dated: December 9, 19
—
To
Dr Harihara Kapila
Secretary to the Welfare State
(BOOBZ and Official Grievances)
In the Ministry of Heritage, Upbringing and Resource
Investment, Aflatoon Bhavan
New
—
Subject: General administrative difficulties faced in the functioning of the above-mentioned department
Sir,
I must record that I was surprised to receive yesterday a State Order directing me to report, within three daysof its receipt, at the Office of the Municipal Commissioner, Madna, for emergency duty to combat on a war footing the plague that has been raging there for the past two weeks. If I fail to comply with the order, I understand that the severest disciplinary action will be contemplated against me. For ready reference, I enclose at Annexure A a copy of the State Order (No. SUS/Plague/ Crash-FCN, signed by D.
Sengupta, Desk Officer, Home Affairs Disaster Management Cell, dated December 5, 19—)
.
Upon receipt of the said order yesterday, I sought appointments with your good self at 10.30 a.m.,
Love-Like-Hate-Adore isn’t as well-known a game as it should be. It is a splendid time-killer because while squandering away one’s most precious resource, it permits one at the same time to rove from one object of one’s lust to another to gauge whether—and to what extent—they reciprocate one’s affections—and indeed, deep in one’s heart, what one oneself truly feels for them. It—LLHA—also encourages one to spell correctly. On a piece of paper, one writes the name of whoever one is idly itching for at that moment, or on that day. For instance:
LINA NATESAN THOMAS
Beneath the line that one draws under the name of the lustee, one writes one’s own:
LINA NATESAN THOMAS
BHUPEN RAGHUPATI
One then sifts through the names and strikes out the letters in common. Thereafter, on the letters left over, one bounces, in order, the choices of Love, Like, Hate or Adore. The sentiment at hand at the end of the name is what the person truly feels for the other below or above the line. Emotionally, it is, so to speak, the bottom line.
LINA NATESAN THOMAS
BHUPEN RAGHUPATI
Lina Natesan Thomas likes Bhupen Raghupati. Bhupen Raghupati adores Lina Natesan Thomas. Vexed, the Chief Revenue Divisional Commissioner, groping for loopholes, wondered whether she—Bunswali—spelt ‘Natesan’ with an ‘h’. Wouldn’t that transform the outcome? He would’ve so liked the stumps of both names to nucleate to Adore, to skim, like a flat stone across water, past the choices Love, Like and Hate, and swoop jubilantly down on the last, somewhat like a buxom, burly, imperious woman, the chairperson of his thoughts of the past eight weeks, descending on her timorous adorer. Whenever both the names climaxed in Adore, he felt that the deities had beamed refulgently on his itch of the month.
LINA NATESHAN THOMAS like
BHUPEN RAGHUPATI adore
His visitor, Rajani Suroor, cleared his throat for the second time. The Commissioner transferred his blank, baleful stare from his memo pad to him, to his modish, beige kurta, his wire-frame spectacles, the golden bracelet on a hairy wrist, the black-and-white, wavy, dreadfully groovy hair that Suroor, narcissistically, fondled without pause, the sardonically respectful, damn annoying half-smile. This fool, the Commissioner felt, should massage him, long and slow, glisteningly, with mustard oil; when he’d been sated, he’d lumber up off the mat and with his belt, thrash Suroor into hushed rashers of crimson flesh; then he’d come all over whatever remained of his smirk.
For Lina Natesan Thomas, the plague was altogether a graver subject.
Confidential
By Registered Post
From
The Junior Administrator (Under Training)
In the Ministry of
Heritage, Upbringing & Resource Investment
New
—
Dated: December 9, 19
—
To
Dr Harihara Kapila
Secretary to the Welfare State
(BOOBZ and Official Grievances)
In the Ministry of Heritage, Upbringing and Resource
Investment, Aflatoon Bhavan
New
—
Subject: General administrative difficulties faced in the functioning of the above-mentioned department
Sir,
I must record that I was surprised to receive yesterday a State Order directing me to report, within three daysof its receipt, at the Office of the Municipal Commissioner, Madna, for emergency duty to combat on a war footing the plague that has been raging there for the past two weeks. If I fail to comply with the order, I understand that the severest disciplinary action will be contemplated against me. For ready reference, I enclose at Annexure A a copy of the State Order (No. SUS/Plague/ Crash-FCN, signed by D.
Sengupta, Desk Officer, Home Affairs Disaster Management Cell, dated December 5, 19—)
.
Upon receipt of the said order yesterday, I sought appointments with your good self at 10.30 a.m.,
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