It was 5:30 a.m. The RJ had floored the gas pedal on his motorized mouth. Listening to him talk made me gasp for air. He bantered with his colleague in 5 languages as his breathless listeners tried to keep pace. I wanted to throttle him. How can you be happy at 5:30 in the morning? Between them, he and his colleague gave their listeners some pretty useful information. Like if you sprayed perfume on a grizzly, his fur would turn purple. Of course if you did that, everything would turn purple for you, so please don’t try it. I wondered why RJs didn’t come with a statutory warning. Their inescapable verbal violence was turning me into a palpitating schizophrenic with racing thoughts. For example: I was now imagining a perfumed purple-fur grizzly waltzing into the radio station and tickling the bejeezus out of the chattering RJ. Suddenly, Elton Jane began serenading us with “Circle of Life.” Just when he hit his highest note (suhhhhhh-kle), they cut him off and went into ad break. “Tonight, Shekar Gupta walks the talk with Karunanidhi” the announcer boomed enthusiastically. It was hard to get excited. DMK’s answer to Lord Rama could neither walk nor talk. The RJ bounced in. “And –duh-welcome back!” he yelled needlessly. Hello! You welcome back. I didn’t go anywhere. The RJ now had a caller on line who wanted to share his ‘most embarrassing moment’ with the world (isn’t anything sacred anymore?) for which he hoped to win a prize – can you think of anything more embarrassing than that? Dressed to the nines on his way to an off-limits celebrity event, the man had slipped in wet slush. “Nothing is slimier than wet slush,” he concluded soberly having learnt his lesson well. ‘You haven’t met Deve Gowda, have you?’ I thought. The RJ then brought on a spiritual guru, a life coach who began by saying, “Attachment to material things is the root of all misery. Practice detachment.” For a moment, I considered taking his advice and smashing the radio to smithereens. “Be calm in the face of provocation,” he continued. Okay, so I could play Beethoven while I gently pounded the radio with a hammer and a smile. There was only one problem: It was not my radio, I was in a moving vehicle on my way to work. I suddenly understood why Tarzan was such a happy man – he had his own transport and he sang his own songs. “Did you know mosquitoes have teeth?” the RJ asked brightly interrupting my thoughts. My mind raced away: Did mosquitoes get dental checks? If they bit diabetics long enough, would they have dental caries? Did they brush?.....
By the time I got to work, I was wide-eyed and dizzy and desperately need a nap...and that’s when you saw me. So, that’s the story. Now, please, I want my job back.
