Mackenna's Booger

Photo courtesy: MAD magazine

I have a problem with the term picking one’s nose. Some people don’t pick, they prospect. Like the man standing beside me in the grocery aisle contemplating cereal boxes. He’s not digging. He’s prospecting – as though MacKenna’s gold is buried deep within his nostrils. First one finger tentatively exploring the terrain and then two fingers aggressively going in for the kill. He’s focused on the job, eyes trained on a spot somewhere between the Fruit Loops and the Quaker Oats, not paying attention to the hustle and bustle around him, the clatter of trolleys, the piped music. Not even a glance at me who, at this point, is staring rather rudely.

Which brings me to the next booger .. sorry … bone of contention. Is there really a well-mannered way to pick one’s nose? Can one deftly insert a finger inside one’s nostril and remove the offending piece of snot before anyone around you has a clue? Or pretend to cough, cover nose and do the job before anyone bats an eyelid.

 

I guess there isn’t. Because the very act of picking one’s nose is not a polite thing to do. A book at the British Library, written more than 500 years ago teaches little children not to pick their nose or ears.

Pyke notte thyne errys nothyr thy nostrellys’

Don’t pick your ears or nose, the ‘Little Children’s Little Book’ says.

This is not fiction. According to science, it is not a good idea to pick your nose either because you might transmit germs into your brain unwittingly and end up with a severe infection or even Alzheimer’s. There is research to support this theory. Not a pleasant thing at all.

There’s even a gadget to discourage nose picking that looks like something Caractacus Potts invented. 

The man next to me hasn’t a clue about any of this though. He’s happily digging and by the look of it, he has enough to set up a souk near the house.

Here a theka, there a theka, everywhere a theka theka!

When the teen returned from university for her summer break merrily singing “Ganpat Chal Daaru La” (all the rage among Gen-Z apparently), it suddenly struck me that if Gurugram had an anthem, this one would certainly make the cut.  

I mean - take a look around you. There are more daaru shops here than schools, museums, libraries and bookstores. Doesn’t that tell you something? And if that wasn’t enough, the Millennium City is all set to get 300 more liquor shops from June onwards. *eye roll*

 

Oh and we also have shoot-outs. In fact, there was an incident at 32nd Milestone soon after I'd moved to the Village. A few gangsters had shot someone dead inside a restaurant. Left me quivering in my boots it did. Avoided that place for the next twenty years though I hear it's had a natty makeover recently.

 

Initially, I found Gurgaon’s ahatas, liquor vends and the culture of open-air drinking quite fascinating. Men (and sometimes women) would be drinking by the side of the road or highway in the evenings with their alcohol bottles lined up neatly on the roof of the car. For youngsters looking for a quick drink and snack after work, Gurgaon’s ahatas were a pocket-friendly alternative to pricey pubs and lounges. Over time, the makeshift shacks/ahatas transformed into buzzing open-air restaurants replete with ear-splitting music and, in some cases, a compact dance floor. There were reports of drunken brawls every now and then and illegal ahatas being shut down. But each time an ahata would close, another would open further down the road. It was like magic. Except it really wasn't.

 

Nowadays, I don’t see people drinking by the side of the road anymore like they used to in the past. And there’s a spike in the number of swanky liquor stores selling IMFL. There are at least six to seven liquor stores + innumerable ahatas in my vicinity. But only one school and one and half bookshops. Gurugram is not just Haryana’s biggest market but also accounts for a whopping share of Delhi-NCR’s alcohol business. It’s a lucrative business, no doubt. 

If only writing were as lucrative. I’m seriously considering bidding for a vend and turning into a Ganpat. Might make more business sense than writing books for a living!