Oh! Morse Code again!

[This post has too much of Morse Code. Proceed at your own peril]

Rekha is learning Morse code. For those who don’t know what Morse code is, it is a language which uses only two states – on or off – of a light bulb for example…to communicate. Audible Morse code would sound like – Dit, Dit, Da, Da….with ‘Dit’ for dots and ‘Da’ for dashes…and a combination of both forming each alphabet.

Confused? Read about Morse code in WIKIPEDIA before proceeding further. If you want to continue reading this post, thank your stars that you were born intelligent and click here.

- – - X- – -

“I am going to learn Morse code,” my wife said even as I closed Art Buchwald’s We will laugh again.

I was amused. Not because like me Art Buchwald is an amazing satirist but because I didn’t expect my wife to know about Morse code. I didn’t remember telling her about the times when my father and I communicated in Morse code so that my mother (and my father’s wife) didn’t know of our plans. We would blink our eyes and communicate messages.

My mother would sometimes get out of the trenches (read kitchen) and ask, “What was that?”

My Army man father, so used to making excuses to his superiors, would shout back, “Just a bit of remorse, madam.”

When my mother wasn’t listening, my father would elbow me and ask: “What does one get when Morse code is conveyed in reverse?

“What papa?” The innocent Jammy – those were the days – would ask.

“Remorse code!”

As if the humiliation wasn’t enough he would then ask me his favorite second question: “Now tell me what does one get when Reverse is conveyed in Morse Code?”

Since I never knew the answer, he would thrust this (see pic on left) Morse Code board into my face.

Cutting back to the present, Rekha is now learning Morse code. She revealed the secret when we were getting out of the gynecologist’s clinic.

“Let me guess…some office politics?” I responded.

“No…why?” Rekha had a confused look on her face.

“What else would you learn Morse code for? The biggest benefit of Morse code is that… after conveying the message you leave no evidence of it – no paper, no emails, no tapes, no nothing.”

“Ok … so?”

“Don’t all these features make Morse code the right vehicle to discuss office gossip?”

“Shame on you Rajan. How could you even think of your wife like that? When I saw Pratima kiss Balu in the cafeteria…I told only four people. If Radhika had seen them, she would have immediately created a Yahoo! Group on the scandal and given the URL to 16 other colleagues.”

“What are you trying to say, Rekha?”

“I am trying to tell you that unlike Shobha De and Stardust…I don’t live on gossip.”

I couldn’t believe my wife. Since when did gossip become second in the list of must-haves? I remember when we got married, gossip was 1.5 points more than diamond in the list of must haves.

“Then pray tell me why you learning Morse code,” I insisted.

She gave me a look which when translated in a rush meant: you-pig-of-a-man-why-did-I-even-marry-you-in-the-first-place. When translated at leisure it meant: If-not-for-the-kid-I-am-carrying-I-would-have-killed-you.

“Do you know that I am carrying your baby?”

“I know.”

‘Do you know that the baby is almost fourteen inches long and kicks me once in a while – which gives me a ticklish feeling?”

“I know.”

“Do you remember the many times I have asked you to place your hand on my stomach when the baby is kicking?”

“I remember.”

“Do you remember the many times the baby stopped moving as soon as I called your name. Probably because you still don’t exist for our baby.”

“I remember.”

“Do you remember the many times you said you wanted to feel the baby’s kicks so that you are not left out on the big pleasures of fatherhood?”

“I remember.”

“Good…I will be using Morse code to call you when the baby starts kicking.”

I stared into her eyes and I knew that for once she meant no harm. Just when I was about to start trusting my wife again, she said: “You might want to brush up your Morse code!”
From The Archives

St. Valentine, I am looking for ya!
Sonia and Manmohan caught on tape
National Animal – a national concern
Kid Story: How Onion got its clothes

Related posts You might want to read:

1. Natural child birth is painful for the husband too
   This post is dedicated to all fathers, whose contribution to child birth has gone unnoticed and unrewarded. If you have been reading Ouchmytoe for a while now, you probably remember than on 29th March 2007 our daughter Rhea was born in a hospital in Kannur, Kerala. If you remember reading this post on Rhea’s birth [...]...
2. How babies come into this World…
   Rhea is now 20 months old and it has been a long journey. If I were to draw a parallel, it has been like crossing the Niagara Falls on a tight walk rope. That’s why in the last 20 months, while playing with Rhea I have always sat down on the floor. I still remember [...]...
3. Finding a play school for Rhea in Gurgaon
   Our daughter is just two years and three months but keeping in with the family tradition we have decided to push her into hell when she least expects it. After all, why shouldn’t we revenge what was done to us? Rekha’s initial list has ten play schools – play schools that made it to the [...]...
4. Shopping for my baby daughter
   Shopping at Mother Care, Chennai was quite an experience. For those who have been lucky enough not to shop in the place, Mother Care is a store that caters to pregnant women and babies born thereafter. My wife who is still in Kannur REQUESTED me to visit them and buy some clothes for our Miss [...]...
5. Email exchanges between five consenting, cheating adults
   This blog post has been inspired by a book called ‘E’ written by Matt Beaumont, a talented writer. The book is set in an Ad Agency called Miller Shanks in London and is written as a series of mails. Just mails exchanged between the colleagues and nothing else. So, here is my attempt in copying [...]...
6. My wife has started complaining. Again.
   It was early 2005 and each day I was discovering something new about my newly wedded wife. We had married each other on 8 September, 2004…or was it 10 September, 2004? Now that I have posted this, I will soon find out from the horse’s mouth. A few days before I got married in Anna [...]...
7. Announcing – Pregnancy Diary
   I can now reveal the news I have been trying to hide from the World for the last three months. Perhaps, Rekha has given me the go ahead because she knows she will anyway give away the secret herself. One really can’t hide from the World that one is pregnant – the huge stomach will [...]...
8. Surviving an economic crisis or depression
   India has recorded a GDP Growth of 7.9 per cent – proof that we Indians have managed the economic crisis/recession a lot better than others. Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi has offered Dubai a bailout plan of 10 billion U.S. dollars…which means my Malayali wife’s relatives won’t be coming back from Dubai, jobless. In short, the biggest [...]...
9. Group dynamics in a married man’s house
   Prakash Raj is a close friend of mine who lives in Delhi. This Saturday, we met up at the Barista in DLF Mega Mall in Gurgaon. He had called on Friday and said: “Jammy, don’t you project yourself as a specialist in man-woman relationships?” “I never did!” I protested. But my friend wouldn’t listen and [...]...
10. Humor in everyday life – a sample
    You are going to read a Yahoo! Messenger conversation between a husband and wife. The husband works for an Internet major called www.ibibo.com and wife used to be with Cognizant Technology Solutions, till she decided to give up her career for a few babies (the couple were aiming for twins). The conversation happens at 3.15 [...]...

 Print this post | Email this post | 2,608 views