Random memory # 328

Calcutta Airport. S, Heh heh and I are on our way back to campus after three days of extreme inebriation (masquerading as NBSM 2001 [1] - an inter b-school event held at IIM C, whose latest avatar can be seen here). As we sit there, waiting for our flight to board, the afternoon has the jaundiced haze of hangover.

S is reading the newspaper. This means, S being S, that he is skimming the newspaper for images of skimpily clad women (I can't say I blame him. It's the ToI. The half naked women are the most intelligent thing about it). He points to a half page picture of some swimsuit contest in New Zealand and says, "Don't these women feel cold, wearing nothing but their bikinis. I mean, it is January, you know". He tries to sound genuinely concerned.

Heh: "Ya, but it's New Zealand right."

S: "So?"

Heh: "So it's the Southern Hemisphere. It won't be cold there now."

S: "Ya right. Like just because they're the Southern Hemisphere they've going to have winter at a different time of the year."

Shocked silence. This man went to an IIT. This man just won a hard fought trivia quiz against a bunch of quizzers from the top business schools in the country (well, actually, we won it, but whatever). And no one's ever told him about the Southern Hemisphere?

S looks at us quizzically, wondering what he's said that's so wrong.

After we've got over our amazement, we try breaking it to him gently that yes, seasons do in fact reverse in the Southern Hemisphere. We explain about the tilt in the Earth's axis, it's revolution around the Sun, etc. S insists we're having him on. We point to the damning evidence of birds flying South in Winter (what does he think they're going there for? Skiiing?). But S has a counter to this. He knows that seasons down South are the same as everywhere else. You see, he's from Chennai, and they have winter in January. So there.[2]

[1] I'll say this for the folks at IIM Cal. They certainly know how to party. Any brief moments of sobriety I may have had in the three days I was there were my own fault entirely. Plus, as I've mentioned elsewhere, you had the luxury of being able to choose your drink, instead of having to rely on your local bootlegger and ending up with that finest of all gravels - Contessa Rum.

[2] In case you're wondering, S is now a successful executive - devoted husband, proud father, s(t)olid citizen. Whether he's figured out about the Earth going around the Sun yet is anyone's guess. We're hoping his children will break it to him gently.

Categories: Personal, Humour