Hennu a.k.a Hemanth

 Mr. Hennu was furious. The women folk at home have singularly mastered the art of re-casting an episode from different angles, aiming to better the last attempt.  The experience was like watching a morphed version of breaking news from all the 24 X 7 channels. He could have walked out of earshot but that had repercussions of another kind. In comparison, the re-run stories were better as he had the choice of dozing off in to a far away land where ladies did not engage in this frivolous activity.

His reverie was abruptly broken by a loud metallic sound – a heap of utensils lay strewn on the kitchen floor. A few shards of broken china really frightened him, as he rushed and surveyed the scene before the womenfolk. There was a very valid reason to get in to a damage gathering mode – he had forgotten to close the windows which a cat always used as the entry point – not to say hello to the folks but to grab some eatable. They had specifically warned him about this forager and yet... While clearing the mess, he readied himself to hear the admonishment repeatedly till another faux pas is committed.

In the midst of similar mishaps he had developed personal solutions to effectively deflect their anger, by spreading a smoke screen of invented philosophy though the screen was inefficient in preventing the re-runs. He cursed the effect of 24 X 7 news channels for this inadequacy, within himself. Tired of waving the red, yellow and orange flags the womenfolk settled for the white flag he managed to wave with apprehension.   Savouring the reprieve, he wanted to go through the list of replies and find out which one he could have used and escaped without spending energy in waving the white flag.

Now, Mr. Hennu shifted gears and really became very furious. In the study where he had his writing materials and books of his choice but there was no trace of his compilation on invented philosophy. Further search revealed many of his treasured hand written papers and notebooks had vanished. The mystery surrounding their disappearance weighed on his mind as heavily as the missing military plane in the mind of the defence minister.

When he gave up on them as a lost cause, the womenfolk let out the secret – all his precious possessions (papers and notebooks) had been cleared to keep the shelf tidy and if he so desired  to re-posses them, all he had to do was to go in search of the old paper buyer.

In stunned silence, Hennu sank in to a sofa for inventing a new set of smoke screen solutions  to confuse and console a person like himself.
“Better not to engage and avoid conflict”, “Not hearing is not as harmful as coming up with an explanation”. Even to his ears these  murmurings sounded childish!

Before calling it a day, he wanted to pry out the secret why he is becoming called as Hennu but the mere thought of going back to the womenfolk and their penchant for the 24 X 7 syndrome prevented him from going any further down his memory lane.