My Fridge Story

I got myself a 235ltr Electrolux-Kelvinator Fridge last night! Here's a related story.
When I was a kid I was bowled over by Fridges; I come from South-India which suffers from an intense tropical climate. I know only hot, hotter and hottest. So, I was a natural sucker for anything that had anything to do with cold: snow, Air-conditioners, Fridges, winters, fog... You name it.
Until I was ten I had never seen a Fridge from close quarters. I know this concept is indigestible for readers from USA or Europe. But, yes, that's how it was. In 1983 my aunt invited my brother and me over to Hyderabad for the summer holiday. Of all the things that their opulent home had to offer (opulence is relative my friend), I was smitten by the -you guessed it right- the fridge. I used to make ice and wonder at the magic that was: pour water, come back after half hour, and take your ice-cubes and slip a few in your shirt. Perverse as it may sound, I loved to dump a few ice-cubes in my shirt and roll on the floor. But the Fridge became a dream when I screwed up big time with my Grand pa's teeth. I took a Mango fruit and kept it in the freezer for like an hour. I took it out after an hour only to find it frozen rock-hard. So, I left it in the vegetables tray and went off to take a shower. I came back from my shower and opened the Fridge only to find my frozen Mango missing. I made an abrupt U-turn, fuming under the assumption that my brother had stolen the Mango, and I screeched on my brakes near the dining table: my grand pa had the fruit in his both hands and he was about to sink his dilapidated teeth into the rock-hard, frozen Mango. I was stunned by god's weird sense of humor and before I could shrug off my astonishment and save the fruit, I mean, my grand pa... It was too late. His teeth fought valiantly with the frozen Mango and the evil Mango sent some shooting pain up his teeth. He started screaming. 'Which fucking devil's son would freeze a fucking Mango! fucking nuts!' and his stare rested on me. His eyes from their deep-socket dwelling burnt a hole through me. Of course now he knew which **edited for profanity** would freeze a Mango. My aunt, when she heard the story, strictly told that the Fridge was off-limits for me from then on. So, thus ended my first encounter with a Fridge. When I left Hyderabad, I longed to meet the Fridge and hang-out with it for a few moments... But fate would have none of it. Neither my aunt. It was a tearful parting. I mean I would have loved to experiment more on the Fridge. Lock up one of the cats in it, or maybe, open up the Compressor to see how it worked... But luckily or unluckily (depends on who is saying it) that was not to be.
I swore to myself that I would buy a better Fridge than that. My folks did buy one later on. But then I was now bent on buying my own.
The dream partially came true a few months back when I was in Indore. Sudheep my good friend wanted to sell his old Fridge to buy a new one. He quoted 3000 Rupees and I nodded 'yes' until my neck broke. And so it arrived one fine Sunday night. It looked like it belonged to Aurangazeb or probably King Henry. It badly needed a fresh coat of paint. I told myself, 'what do you expect for 3000?' The answer came after I plugged it to the electrical socket; a **edited for profanity** Silencer was all it needed. It wheezed like a naked, asthmatic, old man atop K2. It was spooky too. It would wheeze on and suddenly stop, and the whole Fridge would rattle, as if the old man was shrugging off the snow. 'Digy Digy Digy Dittt!' it would stop. And I would stop whatever i was doing and watch it and heave a sigh of relief. And at the most unexpected moment, it would start its wheezing again; it was like getting a slap from my smart dad: he'd raise his right palm and while I was staring at the right palm and ducking in horror, he'd slap me with the left; more than the pain, it was the humiliation of being cheated that hurt me the most. Anyway, I was looking for my good friend Sudheep, and strangely, he was on vacation. If I had had met him, I'd have celebrated my 30th birthday in jail. But yea, anyway. Grrrr! I never used the Fridge, I mean its noises were kind of not worth say, chilling a beer or ice-cream? The noise would turn a saint to a psychotic killer. Sudheep where the hell are you man?
I left Indore last October and gave the Fridge to my friend Nags - for free. And I moved to Pune. I moved on and now I have a brand new Fridge. But Nag's has lost the capacity of maintaining a coherent conversation. He now makes strange noises, like a 100 year old Fridge wheezing.

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