I am writing here, after one complete month’s interval. That’s too long a gap to update a blog. My sincere apologies for that.
For those into serious reading, might guess where I flicked this title from… Yes, from the famous novel by the same name by one of the most prolific writers, Stephen King. To give you an insight of this book, it’s a novel that comprises of four finest stories, of which three have been made into Hollywood blockbusters. Let’s stop at this point about the book, as I am too ordinary a critique to give my review on it.
The reason for me to use the same name is the similarity between the novel and this article. Naah! I am not writing four short stories… but four incidences that occurred here in past few days.
The first one…
On March 1st, 2009 it snowed like crazy in Athens, GA. The temperatures went down from 12 degrees C a day prior to this to -8 degrees C on that day. In one week the temperature gradually got to normal and to everyone’s surprise, it touched 28 degrees C on March 8th, 2009. On this day the sun was merciless on everyone’s scalp. (Though the temperature appears to be less, it gets very hot and humid out here). And today, on March 15th, 2009 after a warm and sunny week, it rained like crazy, bringing the mercury levels down to 4 degrees C. It’s hard to believe that how the weather conditions have paradoxically changed. Three consecutive Sundays and totally different weather on all occasions. Hard to believe and even harder to explain I should say!
The second one…
Having lived here for a fairly long time now, I have seen the kinda life-style that the westerners adopt. So, informing parents about their wedding a week or two prior to it is a normal practice here. But what I saw in a restaurant is worth writing. I saw four people, of which two were elderly couple and two were young couples (appeared to be). As they were sitting right behind me, unintentionally I ended up playing an eavesdropper and happened to listen to their conversation. The elderly woman said this, “Mark, your choice is excellent. Having interacted with Briana for almost one day, I am giving you a nod to go ahead with your engagement. Initially I was apprehensive about your marriage with her, as she isn’t a Southern Bell. (A young girl from Southern part of US is referred to as Southern Bell) But she is a very nice girl. I am proud of you my son!” The youngsters were all happy after hearing these words. My conclusion that the parents don’t have any say in their children’s marriage in the western culture, proved to be wrong.
The Third one…
A few days ago, I went to a kinda deserted place. While waiting for the bus, four African-American men approached me and started demanding some money. I happened to carry a lot of money that day (extremely rare for me to do that). Fearing that they might take away all the money that I had, instead of just $10 (which they demanded), I avoided giving them money using all my verbal skills for a while and then later escaped from there without any fuzz. Later, I shared this incident with many of friends, relatives etc. A common conclusion was drawn. African-American men are very dangerous. May be their poverty or laziness was the root cause of all evil. I lived by this faith for some time. But today, when I got a ride back home in taxi, I had to re-think on it. The driver, Derrick Malcolm was an African-American, which made me feel uncomfortable while boarding the cab. On my way back home, I had a very good conversation with him. He not only seemed to be a reasonable man, but also had very good general knowledge. Later on I got to know that he was an educated man and had served in the US Navy for a while. Driving a cab was his secondary source of income. I should admit he was the friendliest cab driver I had ever travelled with. This forced me to conclude that it’s is not right to brand a community as evil, taking into consideration few people. This was contradictory to my previous conclusion.
Last, but not the least…
If you have known me for a while, you may know that I have always considered marriage as a liability and not an asset. For the just concluded vacation I visited my friend. He has been happily married for 8 months now. I saw the manner in which his wife took his care, helped him get over the stress at office and consistently supported him. My friend is really lucky to have such a wonderful wife and vice versa. He too admitted that after marriage life was much better than that in the past. The first day I got the impression that life becomes all-good after marriage. I had started to believe that my conclusion in the past about married life was wrong. But slowly I started getting complains and negative sides by the second and the third day, mostly from his wife. There were fair amount of negatives they had to deal with, but these two optimistic guys have decided to focus on positives, which is not an easy affair. So, in this case, I still uphold my previous idea.
On my way back, I saw a quote on guy’s T-Shirt, which for sure made me chuckle. It read something like this… “96% men are fools, as only 4% of them stay single”
The above four incidents were a result of my deep observation in the past few days. No wonder that my University was closed for one week on account of the Spring Break!
Wish you a very happy spring season, the best among four different seasons.
