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The Quirky Life of P

Humor and satire revolving around Mr P- a fictional mix of an avatar of Mr Bean and the veritable Bertram Wooster of Wodehouse fame.

Archive for the category “wild life”

19 Apr 2014
7 Comments

Ode to a Cat

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Mr P was so happy with his previous poem that he decided to write another one. He wanted to write on animals this time and he thought writing a poem on the feline species would be very neat. He realised that it would be good to watch his subject while he wrote about it. However, Mr P was not inclined to take another trip into the Gir forests (see Mr P, Figura and the lion) or even go and watch lions at the nearest zoo. It was then that he decided to settle for the humbler Felis catus instead of Panthera leo and chose the neighbour’s cat as his prime candidate. Mr P and the cat had a complicated relationship going between them. While the cat liked to sneak into P’s kitchen, especially after Mr P cooked some fish, it preferred to be left alone from Mr P’s doting attentions. Every time Mr P tried to sweet talk the cat to come close to him, it had only given Mr P scornful and disdainful looks, twitched its tail in displeasure, and cat-walked away.

That day, Mr P sneaked in on the cat while it was enjoying a nap in the cool of the veranda, after a sumptuous meal of mackerel from Mr P’s leftover lunch. He slowly sat down near the cat, spread the paper on the floor and took his pen to write.

Yet he was stuck again… He made a few dots and dashes with his pen and a few doodles but no words were penned. Mr P again remembered his writer’s block. There was now no doubt in his mind that he could have been born with it! P made a mental note to talk to his doctor about this at his next appointment. Gathering his thoughts back, he focused hard on the sleeping feline, put his pen to paper, and started to write:

Oh feline so sleek even in sleep,

Your paws huddled and claws withdrawn,

While awake you stealthily creep

To filch my fish and prawn.

In anger your tail whips and lashes,

Whiskers frown, topaz eyes flare

And off you scoot on wild dashes

Every time I spoil your dare.

If more fish on your menu you expect,

Then wipe the disdain off your gaze

And learn to show me some respect

The next time we come face to face.

With these few lines written down, Mr P was tempted into stretching out like the cat on the veranda floor. It was a balmy day and a gentle breeze came flowing in. Mr P was soon giving orations and reciting poems in front of a cheering, awe-struck audience……

But the poor cat began to have nightmares. The loud, jarring sound got to a point where the feline finally woke up, its heart beating in panic. She saw Mr P on the floor. Very loud purring sounds escaped from his nostrils and lips as they quivered rhythmically.  With a yowl it dashed away.

 

Time For Poetry: DP Challenge

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Posted in Animals, Blogging, Funny, Humor, Humour and Satire, Poetry, wild life and tagged , , , , , , ,
16 Sep 2013
5 Comments

Dances with elephants-Mr P takes a joy ride!

There is nothing wrong in dreaming about riding an elephant! Mr P wanted to ride an elephant, get his picture taken in that glory, and post it on Facebook. This wish had budded in his mind ever since he saw the movie Bride and Prejudice, where the hero and heroine rode on an elephant in the last scene. Mr P had thought it was pretty cool!

So this time on his tour to India, P visited the elephant park at Kottoor in Kerala. As soon as he reached the place, P booked his ride straight away. He was given a time to turn up at a spot for his ride and in the meantime, P decided to take a walk around the park. He saw several elephants – they ranged from very young, hairy ones to huge giants. It was then that P realized that all of a sudden he was actually getting quite nervous about riding an elephant. P began to feel that he needed to keep at a distance from them, even from the baby ones. The baby elephants were too playful and seemed to want to tickle his ears with their trunks! As for the big, adult elephants, he felt them giving him such deep looks as if they knew all his darkest secrets! Of course he had heard about how intelligent elephants were.

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He now started having serious reservations about the elephant ride but was worried that if he withdrew now, it would make him look like a coward.  So, when the time came, he made his way to the location with shaking legs. The mahout was waiting for him with a huge elephant.

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Faint heartedly, P gazed at the large mammal which seemed to give him a mean, disdainful look.

“Can I have a ride on that elephant?” Mr P asked pointing to a frolicking baby elephant that stood some distance away.

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“Oh! No sir! It is too small to carry people. We only use adult elephants for rides,” said the mahout.

With no way of escape, P decided to climb on top of the giant that had now bent down on its knees at the instance of the mahout.

“If Tarzan can do it, so can I,” muttered Mr P as he proceeded to mount.

Climbing onto the back of an elephant was indeed a feat and after several aborted attempts, P finally made it to the top. As the elephant stood up erect, he sat astride on its back. Those who have sat astride on top of an elephant would realize how wide apart you have to keep your legs! It was almost like doing the splits!

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As the elephant moved forward, P felt very uncomfortable, so much so that he decided to change his position to side-straddle. Slowly he moved his legs around and finally managed to get them both together and down on one side of the elephant. However, on sitting sideways he found that he had moved too much to one side. As the elephant walked, P kept slithering and sliding further down the side of the elephant every time it moved. His silky, smooth track pants only aggravated the situation.

P decided that falling down from the top of an elephant would not be an enjoyable experience. So a flustered Mr P then decided to return back to his original position and sit astride. He started moving his legs around once more. However, he had lost his sense of orientation in his anxiety and when he finished adjusting his seating, he found that he was sitting astride facing the tail end of the elephant! So P started to turn around again.

Changing one’s position atop a moving elephant is not an easy task for a person riding an elephant for the first time, but misfortune had not glanced his way, ……. yet. With the last move however, P nearly fell off and was saved only by grabbing the rope around the elephant’s neck. Somehow he maneuvered himself back on top. He was now lying prostrate on top of the elephant, facing its tail end and hugging the animal for dear life. Hearing a loud applause he slowly lifted up his head and saw that he had gathered a huge audience. A big crowd had gathered and was watching P’s antics on top of the elephant. No one could be blamed if they thought they were watching an atop-the-elephant-acrobatic show and were showing their appreciation with a loud ovation.

The elephant and the mahout however, had no such conceptions. The stressed probiscidean was getting very nervous and the mahout decided to end the joy ride. Very soon (though it felt like eternity to P), the elephant stopped moving and the mahout got it to kneel down. He gathered brave Mr P from the back of the animal. P had nearly fainted. A big cheering from the crowd got P standing up on his wobbly legs to acknowledge their appreciation but saw that the applause was intended for the elephant and the mahout. With an end to all the wriggling on its back, the Elephas maximus indicus breathed a deep sigh of relief and stood up.  The mahout and the elephant looked traumatised as they slowly walked away. They probably would need counselling! No pictures or videos were taken, so Facebook missed a hilarious upload!

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Posted in Animals, Comedy, confusion, exercise, Funny, Humor, Humour and Satire, India, Life, relaxation, stories, Travel, wild life and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
26 Feb 2012
2 Comments

Funny travel incidents: Mr P, “Figura” and the lion…

LionsIn a previous post (http://avatarofmrbean.blogspot.com/2012/01/avatar-of-mr-bean-mr-p-goes-back-to.html ) Mr P had forgotten his parcel of party food on his desk because of all that Australian wine. It is no way as big an adventure that he had had through his interactions with a port wine in India, with the beautiful name of “Figura”. 

It was during his holidays in India that Mr P travelled to Diu, (let me settle your doubts right now. It is indeed DIU and NOT DUI) a union territory of India, that till 1961 had been under the Portuguese  for more than 400 years, where remnants of Portuguese culture still linger.The Portuguese are believed to take pride in their wines, especially the port wines. 

Now, Mr P had a very relaxing holiday on the beaches of Diu and bought two large bottles of the Figura port wine, one for himself and another as a gift for a friend back in Kochi. He then proceeded to travel in a car with two others to Baroda in the neighbouring state of Gujarat. This journey was through the road that traversed the Gir forests famous for its diverse flora and fauna and of course the Asiatic lions. Mr P was all excited about this trip and he would vehemently deny that he had been even a tiny bit scared! But he consumed half a bottle of Figura just before they departed from Diu – for courage!

Mr P sat in front with the driver and his two companions sat at the back. As the car wound its way through the jungle road, Mr P rested his eyes (Or was he in a stupor from the port?). His companions kept their eyes peeled, hoping and praying that they would see some lions, Mr P however, was praying that they wouldn’t. Every now and then he would open his eyes slowly to check whether they were out of the jungle yet. He would also open his eyes when he heard the others mention the deer and other fauna they were seeing. But by the time he roused himself and looked out, the animal would have long gone its way. It was during one of his “open eye episodes” that he thought he saw something in the bushes. 

“A lion! A lion!”, he pointed and then slunk down his seat in a crouch. 

“Where is it sir?” said the driver and brought the car to a crawl.

“Right behind that clump of trees”, Mr P managed to point out and slunk down again.

Now, a bus loaded with tourists and a car following it  came from the opposite direction and they stopped and inquired why Mr P’s car was stopping there. Seeing a lot more of his own species, Mr P gathered courage and blurted out that he had seen a lion and all the tourists got very excited. They got their cameras out and started gazing all around. 

The driver of Mr P’s car then realised that Mr P’s lion was nothing other than a portion of a big tree trunk and surreptitiously informed that to Mr P. To save the situation, a sheepish Mr P told the passengers in the bus and the other car that because of all the noise they made, the lion could have disappeared back into the forest.  Mr P was relieved indeed when his driver slowly started the car again and began to drive away.

To overcome the embarrassment and also to give him more courage, Mr P decided to take another swig of his bottle of the Figura. It was a very potent wine and he could hardly keep his eyes open. He was hoping to take the rest of the wine to Gujarat and said as much to the driver who was eying him curiously.

“No, you are not allowed to do that sir,” said the driver. “Gujarat  is a dry state”.

“What the…..!” Mr P shouted. He huffed and he puffed. And he brooded on what could be done. Rather than waste the wine on his companions or throw the wine with the bottle away before they crossed the borders into Gujarat, Mr P being Mr P decided to finish the whole bottle of wine then and there. A very inebriated Mr P fell into a slumber that was interspersed with nightmares of lions sitting on his tummy, which made him wake up and get the car to stop – so he could empty his bladder. It was during one such occasion that Mr P saw those two lions. They were slinking slowly across the road and Mr P gave a shrill ear-piercing cry.

“Lions ! Lions!” he shouted at the top of his lungs and jolted everybody else out of their skins.

The others looked eagerly to where Mr P was pointing and saw those two scared little puppies that appeared to be trembling, quite shaken by Mr P’s screams. They belonged to the dog or canine species (Canis lupus familiaris) rather than the feline species (Felidae panthera leo)!

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The story ends here and it is left to your imagination as to what could have happened with the rest of Mr P’s journey. Of course, it being Mr P, one can only imagine that everything would have gone incident free(tongue in cheek)!  

Of course Mr P would have had to go through a police check post into a dry state with a full bottle of the gift wine in his bags! What with all the lion encounters and the tryst with ‘La Bella Figura’, he had completely forgotten about that!

Did you?

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Posted in Animals, Comedy, Food, Humor, Humour and Satire, India, Life, stories, Travel, wild life, Wine and tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
26 Feb 2012
1 Comment

He Bunks Work with a ‘tummy bug’ and drinks Moose Drool..…..!

A Long Island Iced Tea in the traditional high...

It was Wednesday and Mr P  was already feeling very weary and tired of work. He felt like leaving work early and he badly wanted to go somewhere like Cubby’s Sports Bar and Grill to relax. He knew that to get a nice place to sit at Cubby’s, he had to be there early before the other office goers hit the place. Leaving work early was quite a habit for Mr P. In fact it had become so much of a routine to him that he had exhausted all the excuses for obtaining permission to leave early. He did not like to bunk work and go without permission after that incident when he had sneaked off one afternoon on the sly and on the way out had walked into his boss who was returning from a meeting.

Mr P thought over all the excuses he had used recently and the list included 1) headache 2) tooth ache 3) toe ache 4) sore eyes  5) nose bleed 6) itches and bites 7) chills 8) dentist’s appointment 9) doctor’s appointment 10) receiving parcels and postal order deliveries couriered to his home address 11) Sister’s, brother’s, uncle’s, aunt’s, niece’s and nephew’s weddings 12) Grandma’s and Grandpa’s funerals 13) hospital visits to see sick parents, friends, cousins and all sorts of relatives 14) appointments with the cable and internet services guy, plumber, electrician and exterminator. He noted that there were not that many stomach aches in the excuses he had used. So he decided to have a“tummy bug”.

He saw his boss in his office and told him about this excruciating stomach pain he was having from something he must have eaten the previous night. He said he just wanted to go home and curl up in his bed. His bedroom had an en-suite and attached toilet. With the readily and hastily given permission, Mr P slunk off from work and drove straight to “Cubby’s Sports Bar and Grill”. There, he found himself a nice little niche from where he could watch the football on TV and he congratulated himself for having beaten the rush. He lounged on the Cubby seat and ordered Nachos, fried chicken and sweet potato fries with a Caesar salad. To wash the food down, he ordered some ‘Michelob Golden Light’ (definitely not something off the Alaskan gold mines). He ate and drank and watched the games on the TV and later ordered some ‘Moose Drool’ (definitely not that liquid trickling down the jaws of that big North American animal Alces alces, also known as the Elk in Eurasia).

 Time just seemed to fly at Cubby’s. (Not at all like at work where it seemed to take ages for the clock to strike five and one could go home.) Mr P had finished his food, the ‘Michelob Golden Light’ and the ‘Moose Drool’ and was nursing a tall glass of ‘Long Island Iced Tea’ (certainly not liquid black tea from Long Island with ice cubes floating on top) when he called the waitress over and ordered a Mexicali Burger.

 He had to raise his voice because of the din with all the blaring TVs and the chatter of the people. Then he saw from the seats across that were now occupied, two glaring eyes watching him. Mr P could never mistake those eyes. They sent a shiver down his spine even with the fortifications from the Michelob Gold, the Moose Drool and the Long Island Iced Tea. And they were not even in his boss’s office then! No matter where, even at cool Cubby’s, those eyes looking at him with displeasure covered him in cold sweat! How could he explain the sudden disappearance of his “tummy bug”?

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