Well, the story unfolds in Coimbatore airport, which is probably the same size as mine and my neighbor’s apartment put together (No, i don’t live in a bungalow, but a regular sized apartment!). I was returning to Chennai by a Jet airways flight from Coimbatore. We were waiting in the lobby after having passed through the security which incidentally was almost the same as the check done by the uniformed guard outside Saravana Bhavan.
There was only one TV kept at the corner of the lobby right next to a mobile coffee shop. So, while Vidhya, Akshara and Vidhya’s mom were seated in the front, i went to the corner to find a seat to watch TV. I had just settled down when i felt a sudden itching sensation on the top of my foot (I was wearing a slipper). It was like something had scratched my foot. I jumped up in surprise. The lady at the coffee shop said “Its ok sir. It was just a rat which ran over your foot. It has run away. Don’t worry”. Since i too saw something running away from me, i kind of calmed down.But, i felt an itch near the knee and on my thigh. So, i was there in the airport, jumping up and down and feeling the sides of my fearing that a rat had gone inside. But, i didn’t manage to find anything.
So, i went over to the place where Vidhya was sitting and started narrating this experience. Vidhya got worried and asked me to consult the airport doctor as a precautionary measure. But, i reassured her that it would be ok and started joking about the situation. A few minutes had passed and i felt an itch on my waist at the back and it seemed to “travel” to the left! I quietly excused myself to go to the rest room, just to ensure that all was ok.
Since it was an airport, i guess that the restroom was also designed like the ones inside an airplane, an extremely small box with not even enough room to stretch my hands in either direction. Once inside this box, i undid my pant’s buckle and to my utter shock, out jumped an itsy bitsy teenie weenie rattie (Just to make it rhyme!).
Well, it looked like one rat was chasing another and the one chasing took a wrong turn and went up my pants. This rat had just spent almost 5 minutes inside my pants and it was obvious that both of us (the rat and i) were relieved to be relieved of this imprisonment! The rat was delirious with joy and started running all over the place. Well, all over the place wasn’t much, as there wasn’t much space to run around. i guess that this rat, before entering my pants, was practising for the upcoming rat-race in coimbatore because it started running in circles along the wall of this small room. This rat didn’t look like a sprinter, but a marathon runner. So, it would be some time before this rat stopped his practice.
But, there was a problem. i was in the way with my pants down to the ankles. Taking the size of the room into consideration and doing a quick calculation using the formula time = distance/speed, i realised that there wasn’t enough time for me to bend down and pull up my pants until the rat reached me on the next round. So, there was i was , with my pants down and jumping up such that my jump exactly coincided with that point of time when the rat was near me. But, i wasn’t good at skipping and hadn’t played the game where two people on either side of you rotate the skipping rope and the person in the middle jumps up to avoid the skipping rope. So, i knew that it wasn’t going to be long before i misjudged my jump and landed right on top of the rat! The animal lover that i am, i wasn’t interested in harming this little guy. So, i had to do something and it better be fast.
One option was to just open the door and run out. But, this wasn’t the kind of restroom where you have a big room with wash basins and the WCs were inside this room. This was just a room WC. You open the door and walk out to the full view of the airport. I couldn’t do this because my pants weren’t where they were supposed to be. So, i took the drastic measure of jumping a little higher once and jumping on to the closet (hoping that it was not a low-quality one!). It survived and we (the rat and i) did too! Some more calculations later, i jumped on the floor and managed to run out of the room leaving the rat inside to finish off his marathon practice.
Once out of the room, i went to the airport security and asked to meet the airport doctor. He told me that a new doctor had been appointed the previous day and he was on leave that day! He wanted to know what had happened and i explained the situation briefly to him. He said” Sir, it must be the common rat, nothing to worry. Nothing will happen”!!! Common rat it may be, but there was nothing common about a rat in my pants!
it was time for my flight to leave, so i had to leave the airport after writing a complaint in the suggestion box. But, i guess it will be passed on as toilet paper in the restroom!
Moral of the story: Never ever be stuck in the middle of a rat-race!
