My Off guard Guardian Genie

My off guard guardian genie

Ever heard of the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’? Yes? No? Well right now I’m with them. No, not as their Guest of Honour, but as a prisoner, and all this thanks to my dear little ‘Guardian Genie.’

Thud! I fell of the bench and landed on the hard wooden deck. No! I didn’t wake up from a dream to find everything hunky-dory, I had just slipped of the bench.

“Well?”, I thought looking at ‘Mr. Cool Genie’, sitting on the arm of the bench and whistling. It’s at least not the first time my ‘Birthright (Off guard) Guardian Genie has made sure I land in a mess.

It all started fifteen years ago, when I arrived on this planet, all cute and cuddly. But the very same day my ‘Birthright Guardian Genie’ also arrived. If you think he is this sweet ‘n’ cute genie, clad in a white tunic and with a wand in his hand, then I’d say “Mate, you got it completely wrong!”

Our man dresses up in an LA Lakers jersey, shorts, Fastrack eye gear, baseball cap and sneakers. He does not have a wand in his pocession (a good thing, I’d say), but snaps his fingers to get things done—err……….magically!!

Life with him as my friend, philosopher and guide (mind you a very wayward guide though) cum mentor cum eavesdropper on personal conversations cum anything else the situation doesn’t demand, has been, in bold capitals underlined,

‘NOTHING SHORT OF A PHANTASMA’.

My multifaceted genie is the root cause of most, no actually, all my troubles. He is the very reason why I’m on this stinking ship with a guy who’s got ‘Polly the Smart IV’ sitting on his shoulder, a wooden leg and a blind eye. Nice guess! He is indeed the leader of the Pirates of the Caribbean.

I was a harmless specie last night, sitting on my bed and reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, when ‘Mr. Smart Genie’, attempting to straighten the cushions on my bed, landed us in the middle of the Caribbean Ocean—‘all with a snap of his fingers.’

I’m amazed, bewildered and speechless with the accuracy with which he manages to transport us at least a hundred miles away from the intended destination. Well for all this effort, we were finally rescued, by guess who? -- the Pirates of the Caribbean. But what annoys me more than anything else on this half of the planet, is that reassuring smile my genie wears (the phoniest one you could ever fathom), especially in dire situations like this. An anonymous intellect once said, “A smile is a curve that sets many things straight.” But with my genie, more often than not it’s the other way round. His smile can be defined as an indication that all that is straight will soon become crooked. Can’t I remember those numerous examples for this!

When I was but a toddler, he advised me to kiss a toad, and no, it did not turn into ‘Prince Charming’. It bulged, turned a horrible shade of yellow and literally ‘puked’ all over me!

And then, the other day, he offered to complete my Geography Project on Martian Topography. I opened it an hour later and ….....voila! I found it decked with pictures of the Canary Islands.

Well there have been those odd, unexpected bright moments with him around, like the time when the guy who tried to bully me in school grew polka dotted donkey’s ears.

Now back after the epic flashback, I grew rather worried. We, rather ‘I’ had been stuck on this ship with a bunch of imbecile, noodle- nosed pirates for more than four hours, with nothing to live on except a plate of raspberries. What do I do????

Try this, put yourself in my position. What would you do? Approach your Guardian Genie? Especially after all that I’ve told you?

Suddenly, a flash! An idea! “Think about it carefully”, I warn myself. After all I don’t want to land up in the cooking pot of the pygmies.

“Genie, o’ Genie”, I call out. No response. He was pretending to be deep in thought. “I wish that I were swimming in the ocean.”, I sigh aloud. I hear a snap of fingers and you guessed right, I’m sitting on the mast of the ship. Good, it works!

Second attempt—“Genie, I want black currant ice cream.” Bingo! It’s bull’s eye even this time. I got a nice helping of sushi and tofu.

Now for the big one. I live in downtown Bangalore, in India, so ……….yeah!

“Genie I want to go to the Niagara Falls in Canada, tomorrow”

I close my eyes, stick my fingers into my ears. Thud!

“Please let me not be in Sweden, Antarctica or worse, Saturn. Please, please, pleeeease.”

I can feel water dripping down my neck. I slowly open my eyes.

“Yes! Yipee! Hurrah! Success! I’m back, right next to Pluto my Golden Retriever, locked up in his kennel.”

13th - 15 May 2005