I woke up a few days ago on April fool's day with total determination not to get fooled by anything or anyone. The first thing I did that morning was to resolve to scrutinize everything down to the minutest detail before taking any further steps. As it turned out, It was a very successful April fools day because my carefulness paid off, and I was not fooled at all.
Now if there is one good habit that I have, then it is that I take the trouble to read the newspapers every morning.
Yeah I even take the trouble to read 'stocks shot down three month low' and all that business rot. That's mostly because of the vacation cheer. Anyway, the thing is that I read the papers and I definitely didn't buy 'US to focus on Kashmir after Iraq war'. First of all, Pakistan does not have much oil to boast of, and well, it was April the first. I was really pleased at myself for not getting fooled. Then there was the ad that the State Bank of India was now passing on the new interest rates to all existing floating rate housing loan customers. I was definitely NOT fooled by that, even though I didn't understand it fully. Or even partly. Actually I didn't understand anything beyond the first three words. My mother took the trouble to explain what the ad meant, and that it was definitely not an April fool's gag, although it had a trick in it because it was a rule that the new interest rates would be passed on to the floating interest rate anyway, and they were making a big show of it. Yeah, I've understood the whole concept now. I won't be fooled by any guy who claims that the interest rates are going down. If and when I get myself a housing loan, you can bet everything you have that I'll opt for the fixed interest rates. And ofcourse, I didn't buy the 'rueful sahib says jet not at fault.
Till about for o clock I lazed around watching TV. Then I got a call from a friend…
Me: hello
Friend: okay, you can say hi! Man I don't object, I am not into the preserve english stuff…
Me: Yo man, wha'dya wanna do dude? - is that good enough for you?
Friend: that'll dew just fine, anyway come down to the shopping center, we'll play
Me: OK, OK I get the joke already, pick someone else to fool!
Friend: Joke? What joke?
Me: You won't succeed in wooing me into an empty meeting place, the game is up.
Friend: Am I missing out on something here?
Me: Okay, you are a good actor, I know that… I am not your April fool. Go get someone else…
Friend: So today is the first of April? Don't worry, I had totally forgot…
Me: Yeah right ( is my personal punctuation to denote sarcasm, just like ! denotes exclamation, and ? denotes questioning. I wonder why no one had thought of such a thing before…)
Friend: Okay man BOO. Happy April fool's day, now stop being a dork and come over and play.
Me: If this turns out to be an April fool's joke, I'm going to kill you..
Friend: Fine! Mutilate me, slash me, cut me into pieces, roast me and eat me.
So I went. And there he was standing with a football. All alone. Him in a polo sport shirt and a woosy football. Two people cannot play football, if you do not know. So I told him that we couldn't play football with two people. He asked me to relax and that two more friends were coming in a minute, and eight more in five. What actually happened was that three came in fifteen minutes, two more in sixteen, and five in half an hour, but one amongst the ones that came in fifteen went with two of the ones that came in sixteen and came back again in forty five minutes after checking out the new transformer guy in a shop. But by that time two more went, and I cant remember which, to fill air in the ball. We were all together after fifty minutes. With a nicely inflated football. Now the matter remained on who would pay the three rupees to the shopkeeper for inflating the football. We liked to do things properly so it worked out to 30 paise per person…
From then on, I escaped many April fools gags on me. There was the simple, 'pass the ball to me', the totally stupid, 'try to block him'. 'him' was a hefty fellow thrice my weight. Then there was the innovative, 'hey, I am in your team'. And then the 'I really am in your team' etc. Then after the goal was scored, everyone broke into an argument on whose team that particular friend was and well, et cetera and more et cetera. But they couldn't fool me, I know we won. HEY FRIENDS ON THE OTHER (LOSING) SIDE, YOU SHOULD HAVE CONTINUED TO PLAY, GOOFS, IF YOU THINK YOU WOULD HAVE WON… YOU GAVE UP, SO YOU LOSE.
First of April 2003, was a really cool day. For one thing, I escaped so many tries at making myself an April fool, and for another, India has another shot at the world cup because of all those Aussies testing positive for performance enhancing drugs! I would like to take this opportunity for thanking Bombay times for being the first to report the renewed hope, and I would also like to wish our men in blue all the very very best of luck.
