Habits (सवयी)

 

Habits (सवयी)

There are many kinds of habits. Good habits (चांगली सवय or अच्छी आदत ),  bad habit (वाईट सवय or बुरी   आदत), dirty habit ( खराब सवय  or गंधी आदत) and many more. Some habits are downright funny
or even  crazy!      (चक्क चमत्कारिक आणि  मजेदार !)

One of my cousins had written in his
Facebook story, how he had stopped wearing his wrist watch since the beginning of this pandemic or since the first lockdown , lest he develops that queer habit of turning his wrist from time to time to glance at his watch. You have to read his post to get the exact picture. He paints  the funny situation brilliantly. For that matter, Nrupal Kothare's write - ups  are always interesting and  engrossing.

‌Talking about queer  habits , especially the one he has mentioned , reminds of my cousin, Narayan Dada.
‌He had this  very queer habit of turning his wrist to glance at his watch every minute or so, and hear him exclaim, "साला , इतके वाजले ! निघायला हवे ! "
But he would never leave in a hurry but actually wait till the very end of the party.
And a many times,  someone or other, standing/ sitting opposite him, would yell loud at him in this fashion,, "एनाऱ्या , तुझा पूर्ण ग्लास माझ्या बुटावर उपडा केलास! साला इडियट !!!" Soy my uncles (his friends) would tell me with all the dramatics. Of course, I had witnessed the scene once or twice.

‌Then there was this uncle of mine, Keshav Kaka (माझे चुलत-चुलत काका ).
Very often, day in and day out, he would ask passersby the time,  despite donno a wrist watch. "अहो
वाजले किती'?" And soon he was nick named, 'केशव राव वाजले किती'!

Then there was this professor of ours, who had a strange habit (विचित्र सवय ) .  Neville, do you remember Me Bhagwat, who taught us physics (Inter Science )?
Perhaps, it was not a strange habit, but a genuine medical problem. But during those college days we never thought so. We thought he winked while lecturing us on Physics.  This eye twitching of his (left or right eye, I don't remember) was  great to many of us,  some were , especially the girls not at all happy about it.
The strange habit ( continuation)
We started counting the number times the professor  would ' wink'  during the whole period. Soon the girls too joined in the fun.
But he never tried to seek medical help for this problem.  For saw him, some twenty years after completing  my college. He was playing badminton with my cousin, Uday at Hindi Gymkhana, when I heard  the
shuttle cock asking him," Hey Professor,did you wink' at me?"
Was it my imagination?

Vinay Trilokekar

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