A nosy affair

Holy Mary! Those were the only two words I could think of at that inexplicable moment.
No no, I wasn't seeing an apparition of the Virgin mother. The object of my amazement was a man who jumped on the DTC bus as we were passing through South Avenue en route to CP a couple of days back.

The guy had a huge nose protruding outward from his face which i can only describe as scary. If he was an animal, experts would probably give it some fancy terminology like a Proboscis; or in case of a fish, an undulating, flagellating rudder organ with which he rows his whole body with. It would also likely be luminescent (come to think of it, i think it was already glowing at that time).

It looked like the beak of some giant exotic hornbill except that it had two circular holes filled with splinter-like hairs. If Mumbai had drainage pipes the size of those holes, I 'm certain the city would never have been flooded.

Of course, I’m not inferring that he’s ugly or anything; I’d be the first one to admit that he is still far more pleasing to the eye than ME. I mean, I’ve been looking at myself in the mirror daily for two decades and I still can’t forgive my parents. But that nose…...

Nose and knees, knees and nose. I was reminded of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight children; although I wasn’t sure if his nose had been gifted with special powers. But I’m sure he could smell freshly extruded turd miles away.

And with Rushdie came thoughts of Padma Lakshmi. O yes, that sweet purring baby. Here again, I’m not referring to Mr. R’s girlfriend, but my good friend Hemant’s Bike, which was christened Padma Lakshmi. Streamlined, heavy and totally YELLOW in colour. Hemant, dude, if you wanted to get noticed, there are more discrete ways than to ride a yellow bike in Delhi or on the Noida highway. Haha.

Anyway, coming back to Mr. nosy, I felt a little guilty starring at him with my jaws open, but he seemed the least bit disconcerted by his 'thing'. In fact, he was confidently surveying the bus, ostensibly for an empty seat. Either that or he was sniffing the air for smelly armpits to, maybe, threaten people to take a bath before boarding a bus or else ‘I’ll stuff your head inside my nose’ kinda threat.
Then he argued with the conductor on the price of the ticket - he said ‘do ka’, but the conductor said five. The bus suddenly screeched to a halt, and he lurched forward stumbling. He obviously could not smell danger. I got down and silently wished him good day. I've had 'had' enough of him. The whole thing was too nosy for me-literally.