Snow Leopard aka Prateek Varma has a quirky sense of humour that brings an involuntary smile to your lips. Read his posts and you will know what I mean. What makes them enjoyable are that you never know what is coming next. This is what perhaps prompted him to call his the Unpredictable Blog. He not only shoots off his mouth, er….keyboard…but also with his lens at his photo blog. See some samples at the end. In this guest post, he holds forth on the humble grape. Read on….
I sat at the dining table, looking at the basket of grapes in front of me. Seeing the bunch of green globules, filled me up with a strange mixture of emotions.
Let us take this story back a week…………….
Maybe in our quest for some grapes we had called out ‘Beetle juice!’ thrice, and now didn’t know what to do with it. Grapes, grapes, grapes! Yes that had been the call two days previously. You know grapes? Yes, it is the small fruit, shaped like a prolate spheroid. The youth of a raisin before it becomes wrinkled and the skin sags. It has a lot going for it — it is a refreshing fruit and is liked by all in the house. Most importantly it is easy to eat. It isn’t messy like, say, Papaya and you can eat it on the go unlike an orange.
How many times have you seen an orgy scene in a Roman epic with skimpily clad beauties, dropping the fruit in the gaping mouth of an ugly brute. And the brute usually is a bit…err…to be polite….a bit blown out of proportion, if you know what I mean. Such visuals usually give a rather, attractive appeal to the fruit. Maybe the grape is a chic magnet.
So, to cut a long day dream short, I had shouted Grapes! Thrice. Mind you, it was just ‘grapes’ and not ‘grapejuice’ as in ‘Beetlejuice’. In my hurryi had forgotten to suffix the word juice and that error resulted in an odd turn of events.
After the Parents and Grandparents had purchased a few kilos of the fruit, the nightmare was still not over. Three of the Parents’ grateful patients decided to individually gift them with boxes of grapes. And considering the fact that we usually buy meat and eggs in bulk (It beats going shopping again and again), this is what our fridge looked like : 90 eggs, 10 kgs of assorted dead animals, 10 kgs of peas and 35 kgs of grapes
Peas? you must be wondering. Well that was our own fault. The Grandmother had this great idea. She said that peas are of good quality in winters and not available in summers, so why not buy now and freeze them for use later?
Being a carnivore, I can tolerate eating muscles and biting into bones, but eating peas was a bit of a torture. And especially when the dinner table had two dishes with peas and another one that solely consisted of peas. It was like being at a local North Indian dhaba, where the menu consists of paneer, paneer and more paneer. Just that we were overdoing it with the other P.
As if this was not enough, the grapes caused an even bigger havoc. You can’t freeze them. After two days of eating the green and purple beads, five times a day, the body had started protesting. ‘No More Grapes please,’ was the call that echoed from within, as the organs sat down like at protestors at Jantar Mantar.
What could be done with the remaining 30 kgs of potential squish? This was a serious problem that needed some out of the box solutions. The idea did come that we should invoke the spirit of Bacchus in the house. But decided against it as the madness caused by Dionysus would have created a turmoil in and around the house. Not to mention on road while driving, with the fiends in whites (and their brand new Pulsars) chasing after you and throwing the pages of the colourful Challan book at you
Anyway, we finally did manage to finish of the colossal amounts of the fruit in myriad ways — from eating it normally — remind me to categorise the ‘skimpily clad, grape feeding beauties’ as the work of a disillusioned mind — to being creative. Have you ever eaten Spanish omelets, with grapes instead of the regular potato filling? Try it. It is god-awful.
So after a week — though it seemed like a lifetime — of bingeing on the said fruit, we finally laid the ghost to rest. The fridge looked relieved and happy as the last wisp of grapey aura was diluted in the air.
5 hours later……………….
…………The damn grapes in front seemed to tease me. After the last week of overdosing on them, I had developed a kind of strange enmity with the fruit. I stared at the menacing spheroids, they stared back. I wanted to reach out and crush the juices out of them. They seemed to mock at my thoughts.
After a few moments of contemplating the various tortures I would love to inflict on the person who had sent this new batch, I got up, calling towards the kitchen…
‘Nah..I think I will skip them this time. They look sour.’
The After-effects!
Over binging on grapes can cause a strange case of Wino Raw-Materialo Poisoning. To give you a fair example, Here you can see the author as he was trying to become ‘Enlightened’ when he got the strange idea that Diwali lights on his head would lift him to the ranks of the Buddha.
Pic taken when author tried to snatch a portion of raw meet from the street dog’s mouth. In his desperation to break away from the evil grape cycle, he risked his life and limbs. He is still recovering from the plastic surgery on his ripped up face.
The Cybernag 
LOL! Hilarious post! Your hairstyle is so darn funny! ha ha ha ha!!
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hop over tomy blog.. u hath got an award!
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Hey CN,
This comment’s for you to answer
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have u heard of wine. best use of grapes…or any other fruit for that matter.
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Yes I have. As a matter of fact, I did refer to it in the post.
“The idea did come that we should invoke the spirit of Bacchus in the house. But decided against it as the madness caused by Dionysus would have created a turmoil in and around the house.”
Bacchus is the Roman God of Wine and the Madness it causes later amongst other things. And Dionysus is his Greek counterpart in the Pantheon of Olympian Gods. 🙂
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Liked the post snow Leopard.. just FYI.. grapes sell a whopping 60/- a kilo in most parts of India, want to buy re-seller rights, the next time ? Enjoyed the post. Hilarious to the hilt
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Hmmm…yes….I could also pack them in gift packages and charge…around Rs 200 per kg. The possibilities are endless
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Hilarious.Loved your narration.
And the “enlightened” photo,ROTFL
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🙂 Glad you liked it Lotus
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Enjoyed the post, especially the attempt to reach the rank of buddha 🙂 Thanks to Cybernag to introducing me to another wonderful blogger 🙂
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Ahh…yes, I believe, then, after getting enough followers I will be able to rule the world.
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Great post Pattington!
🙂 When life gives you grapes, make wine!
Then have it slooooow.. problem solved.
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😀 Thanks Piyu
Wine…yes, yes…ok will invite you to the grape crushing party too 🙂
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I like your dazzling new hairstyle.
But my dear boy, the next time when you get kilos of grapes, try distributing them to your neighbours. It’s all about loving and sharing.
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Why thank you Mrs Ray, this is the latest in unisexual fashion in Paris. You should try too?
Next time, I will buy a few more kilos and invite you all to a grape crushing party.
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Ah! Now I can correlate our conversation where you shared recipe for blood pudding and suggested other devilish carnivore dishes (for sanity of this blog I shall not name them) it was a result of your pulp and peas diet ;)…
you were hallucinating about all possible meats and even ready to snatch it off a poor measly dog? 🙂 🙂
I am so glad you didn’t give-up on blogging because with every post your beat the last one at the best-o-meter scale!
PS: CN, see you got another one to light up your blog 🙂
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Ahhhh….yes, yes. A leopard can not live without meat for long before the withdrawal symptoms begin showing.
Thanks for the compliment Pal
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Yeah and this time he really ‘lit’ it up, didn’t he? 😀
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Thoroughly enjoyed your tryst with the ‘prolate spheroids!’ So how did the rest of the new batch of the evil fruit disappear? I am sure that an ‘enlightened’ soul like you would surely not have eaten a single one 😀
Btw, loved the pic with the halo round your head. 🙂
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😀 Don’t ask, but they still disappeared somehow.
Thanks for putting it up.
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And thanks for that introduction. I couldn’t wait to read what I had written after that.
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😀 😀
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[…] I wrote a guest post for Cyber Nag. Here is the link: These Grapes Are Sour.. […]
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