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Khulja sim sim...

Today, a colleague and I went on a professional call to a big hospital -- you know, one of those corporate places that are spotlessly clean and quiet and where I always get lost and where I always feel my shoes make an awful lot of noise. Anyways, she was sitting in the reception waiting for me, when she noticed this little boy. He had come to the hospital with his grandmother. This is one of those hospitals that have those 'sensor' doors -- the kind that automatically open and close as you go near them.

This little boy was too young, I think, to be overawed by all the corporate plushness around him. So with little boy daredevilry and mischief, he went right up to the reception doors and yelled: "Khulja sim sim!" Then he went to the other side and yelled : "Band hoja sim sim". And it did. Just like that.

Sometimes, I think we forget to be enchanted by the little things in our life -- the warm, toasty feel of a cuddle in bed especially when its nippy outside; the perky flavour of that first cuppa as it slithers down your throat and the heady caffeine is kicking in; the first showers melting into the earth (no perfume even comes close!); the tantalising aromas that waft from your Malayalee Christian neighbour's apartment every Sunday; the naughtiness of a shared joke or experience -- for some obscure reason, I usually think of the wicked things he said or did only when I'm sitting in an auto or walking down Brigades and then I smile goofily to myself, much to the bewilderment of people passing by.

Like that little boy, I'd love to run up to an automatic door and shout: Khulja Sim Sim! If I did that, two smartly dressed docs would probably march out and guide me to the mental health section. They'd make me do a complete health check and for good measure, charge me an exorbitant, heart-burn-causing amount for telling me I'm perectly fine even if prone to bouts of strange behaviour. And that they'd put down to the stress of modern living. Sigh!

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