Clown

“If it looks like a clown, smiles like a clown, walks like a clown, mimes like a clown, and wears clown shoes, then it’s probably a clown.” —

Last Saturday, I achieved liftoff. Quite unintentionally, of course.

One second, I was walking with the confident gait of a man who believed gravity worked for him—or, at the very least, hoping not to be stopped by “Excuse me, what do you do for a living?”, as if New York wasn’t already unbearable enough without his unsolicited interrogations. No one does a better job of vacuuming the soul out of a simple question. If anyone could bore you in under a second, it’d be him, with that weaponized small talk disguised as curiosity.

And then—phat!—I was airborne.

Suspended. Mid-air. Time slowed. Birds paused. Somewhere, a tabla beat stuttered. For a fraction of a second that stretched like a Delhi summer power cut, I floated. Upar hi upar.

Then—WHUMP! Chest-first into the pavement like a badly trained Bollywood stunt double. No hands. No warning. Just a full, flat, chest-thumping landing that sent a dhadak!—straight through my thoracic cavity. The kind of jolt where ma mutters, “Arre beta, sambhal ke.”

I lay there, stunned and horizontal, the asphalt kissing my pride. Around me, New York carried on as if nothing had happened. Of course. But somehow—miraculously—no broken ribs (okay, maybe a hairline fracture), lungs still inflating, and not a single influencer in sight.

Even the city seemed impressed. A pigeon gave me a slow blink of respect. I got up, dusted myself off like someone who’d absolutely meant to do that, and walked on—gravity was slightly less trustworthy, but the stock was still mostly intact.