Record Label
He heard the question floating up to him from around two and three fourth’s feet above the ground, way below his accustomed line of vision. Caught off guard, he took his eyes of the heavy white and blue led light of his Black Berry. File boards, screens and passing men and women jolted upwards and out of the tilting frame and his eyes focused on this mess of black hair and wide earnest eyes.
"You are Laloo aren’t you?"
The voice was deep and masculine, like that of a rounded joyful tenor who was puffing up to introduce himself as the cool hairdresser of the town. Laloo tried apprising the situation with a lazy uninterested look, couldn’t sustain for it more than twenty seconds and asked, muttered, mumbled, whined “Yeah…and who are you, kid?”
“I ain’t no keed” The face contorted into an angry redness which made the upper lip perspire. Laloo noticed the first emerging line of a shaved moustache now, but thought it would be cool to continue in the condescending adult vein. “Where’s your mommy?”
Somewhere between the “mom” and “ee” Laloo realized the not very ordinariness of the situation. That unpleasing stark yellowness with dull leaden carpeting that he came to every day, to work amidst busy people who typed and called and walked around looking very busy, was not the kind of place where dwarves/midgets dressed like Figaro walked up to you from nowhere, distracting you while you were getting yourself set for a con call. The “?” was hence sounded out with a hesitating hushed whisper that indicated respect, confusion and slight fear.
The Dwarf caught that change, being used to such tonal fluctuations. They were every day occurrences in his interaction with human life and where he came from they had a word for it, which could roughly be translated as “time to cut the carp and get down to it”, although that robs the word of its poetic beauty and its rough sexiness.
“I am heere to help you deesign that beeer label. Shall we start?”
This was cosmic stuff. Two nights back, two of the Gods Laloo worshipped had brewed amber and gold, chilled and frosted, in his dreams. It was the purest Belgian beer, spiced with olives and cardamom and chestnuts, the color of oranges in warm sunshine, that tasted like a fruit market gone deliciously wrong. They served it to him in a large silver chalice that was polished so well that it reflected the liquid within outside and glowed in the warm bright amber. He sipped the cool froth and liquid as Athena and Horus looked on and smiled beatifically. From then on the dream twisted into something strangely unmemorably sexual and he blushed at the lost recollection of it.
And now here was the sign that all that was not in vain. There was a purpose to his life after all and the Gods did exist outside of dreams and books and vases and museums.
They started walking back to his desk, Dwarf and Man, with the Dwarf taking long strident steps to lead the march. Laloo tried making conversation. “So what’s your name?” “Are you a friend of Athena’s?” “Are you allowed to drink?” “How old are you?” “Are Dwarf women also called Dwarfs?” “Where’s your beard?”
The Dwarf walked, head bent down as if in deep meditation and arms folded thoughtfully around his chest with the chin almost resting somewhere close to the neck. He had a placid growl, if that could be the expression to be used, that unnerved Laloo and made him ask several meaningless questions in a go.
When they reached the glass cubicle where Laloo stored his coffee mugs and laptops, the Dwarf deigned to answer a few questions. “My name is not important, I dated Atheena a long time back, I am older than the rock your beelding stands on and I can drink you down man to Dwarf any night and take you home to your momma” Laloo ignored the taunt and focused on what was most relevant. “Dated?”, he asked.
“Let’s begeen” said the Dwarf with the unimportant name. He said “begeen” in a mind numbingly awesome deep voice that exuded strength of purpose and the gravity of the said purpose. He also muttered two short sentences that sounded like four short sighs and that indicated a prayer to the Gods.
“Have you configured the bottle?” he asked looking around as if he expected to find the bottle on the table there but knew better , knowing Laloo’s incapability at doing anything great, not to expect it. That grated. If there was one thing that set Laloo off on missions no one could stop him from, it was when someone acted like they knew better and expected nothing less than ineptness from him. That was perhaps the only thing that could rouse him into marvelous action and fabulous feats of power and creativity. He did.
“Here’s your bottle.”
He took up a pen, flipped over a magazine that carried an inviting picture of Wonder Woman on its cover and drew rough blue outlines of various beer bottles. He craftily drew one that looked like a well endowed woman. Two, in fact. Three were stout, short dwarves, three linear elongated conicals and two which paid tribute to mount Olympus. The Dwarf made an annoying sound with loud breathing at each design and finally nodded at one of the conicals. “That looks bad but I can make that good.” He paused and added helpfully “The rest are reelly bad”
The Dwarf with the unimportant name attacked his design with a religious fervor. He produced a clean white A3 paper and made Laloo draw a neat larger outline of the bottle. This done he proceeded to cast it on the floor, went on his knees and bending over it like a five year old in a crayon company sponsored art competition for world peace, worked his magic on it. He filled it with a ring of runic letters that were finely etched at the foot of the bottle. He gave the front label a beautiful dome like shape that reminded Laloo of the evening sky over the Bay of Bengal. Creepers and mythic creatures filled in the spaces. He blended black and green and yellow and cream to create a color that looked like amber but was infinitely sadder, darker, peaceful and tempting. And that was the color the dome took. In it he poured his infinite creativity, his power, his will to mine and craft and admire. Tears filled Laloo’s eyes at the sheer beauty of it all. The hands worked like two inebriated lizards, swishing here, curling there and creating a silent racket- like a mating ritual. In dark blue bold letters that curved around themselves he wrote the name of the beer on the label- Calebras- that looked, sounded like an invocation and the very reading of it made Laloo fall on his knees with a prayer for forgiveness. Having written 5% v/v and 700 ml in small delicate cursive font and shaded the entire bottle a golden amber to indicate the brew inside, he looked up and gave a proud, happy sneering smile at Laloo. “Now it’s good!”
Laloo had to find a fault and rather unconvinced himself muttered “Calebras” and then said it twice a little louder to make it look like he was tasting the word in his mouth and looking very omniscient said “ Can we look for a better name?”
The Dwarf snorted and walked out of the glass cubicle. Before Laloo could try stopping him, he had left the office and disappeared to wherever he was from.
Laloo took up the paper and looked at if for five whole minutes. He could discern little stories playing themselves out there. He could make out thinly disguised Gods and demons at war and at love and he could even see himself in that tapestry with almost all creation, busy getting drunk in their own unique way, all blissfully happy and satiated.
If there ever could be a message from the Gods, then this was one to him.
He clasped it to his chest and rushed out of his office into the open to find the Dwarf with the unimportant name and thank the Gods for this beauty. A lightning thereby struck him from the blue sky and burned him to a crisp.
He heard the question floating up to him from around two and three fourth’s feet above the ground, way below his accustomed line of vision. Caught off guard, he took his eyes of the heavy white and blue led light of his Black Berry. File boards, screens and passing men and women jolted upwards and out of the tilting frame and his eyes focused on this mess of black hair and wide earnest eyes.
"You are Laloo aren’t you?"
The voice was deep and masculine, like that of a rounded joyful tenor who was puffing up to introduce himself as the cool hairdresser of the town. Laloo tried apprising the situation with a lazy uninterested look, couldn’t sustain for it more than twenty seconds and asked, muttered, mumbled, whined “Yeah…and who are you, kid?”
“I ain’t no keed” The face contorted into an angry redness which made the upper lip perspire. Laloo noticed the first emerging line of a shaved moustache now, but thought it would be cool to continue in the condescending adult vein. “Where’s your mommy?”
Somewhere between the “mom” and “ee” Laloo realized the not very ordinariness of the situation. That unpleasing stark yellowness with dull leaden carpeting that he came to every day, to work amidst busy people who typed and called and walked around looking very busy, was not the kind of place where dwarves/midgets dressed like Figaro walked up to you from nowhere, distracting you while you were getting yourself set for a con call. The “?” was hence sounded out with a hesitating hushed whisper that indicated respect, confusion and slight fear.
The Dwarf caught that change, being used to such tonal fluctuations. They were every day occurrences in his interaction with human life and where he came from they had a word for it, which could roughly be translated as “time to cut the carp and get down to it”, although that robs the word of its poetic beauty and its rough sexiness.
“I am heere to help you deesign that beeer label. Shall we start?”
This was cosmic stuff. Two nights back, two of the Gods Laloo worshipped had brewed amber and gold, chilled and frosted, in his dreams. It was the purest Belgian beer, spiced with olives and cardamom and chestnuts, the color of oranges in warm sunshine, that tasted like a fruit market gone deliciously wrong. They served it to him in a large silver chalice that was polished so well that it reflected the liquid within outside and glowed in the warm bright amber. He sipped the cool froth and liquid as Athena and Horus looked on and smiled beatifically. From then on the dream twisted into something strangely unmemorably sexual and he blushed at the lost recollection of it.
And now here was the sign that all that was not in vain. There was a purpose to his life after all and the Gods did exist outside of dreams and books and vases and museums.
They started walking back to his desk, Dwarf and Man, with the Dwarf taking long strident steps to lead the march. Laloo tried making conversation. “So what’s your name?” “Are you a friend of Athena’s?” “Are you allowed to drink?” “How old are you?” “Are Dwarf women also called Dwarfs?” “Where’s your beard?”
The Dwarf walked, head bent down as if in deep meditation and arms folded thoughtfully around his chest with the chin almost resting somewhere close to the neck. He had a placid growl, if that could be the expression to be used, that unnerved Laloo and made him ask several meaningless questions in a go.
When they reached the glass cubicle where Laloo stored his coffee mugs and laptops, the Dwarf deigned to answer a few questions. “My name is not important, I dated Atheena a long time back, I am older than the rock your beelding stands on and I can drink you down man to Dwarf any night and take you home to your momma” Laloo ignored the taunt and focused on what was most relevant. “Dated?”, he asked.
“Let’s begeen” said the Dwarf with the unimportant name. He said “begeen” in a mind numbingly awesome deep voice that exuded strength of purpose and the gravity of the said purpose. He also muttered two short sentences that sounded like four short sighs and that indicated a prayer to the Gods.
“Have you configured the bottle?” he asked looking around as if he expected to find the bottle on the table there but knew better , knowing Laloo’s incapability at doing anything great, not to expect it. That grated. If there was one thing that set Laloo off on missions no one could stop him from, it was when someone acted like they knew better and expected nothing less than ineptness from him. That was perhaps the only thing that could rouse him into marvelous action and fabulous feats of power and creativity. He did.
“Here’s your bottle.”
He took up a pen, flipped over a magazine that carried an inviting picture of Wonder Woman on its cover and drew rough blue outlines of various beer bottles. He craftily drew one that looked like a well endowed woman. Two, in fact. Three were stout, short dwarves, three linear elongated conicals and two which paid tribute to mount Olympus. The Dwarf made an annoying sound with loud breathing at each design and finally nodded at one of the conicals. “That looks bad but I can make that good.” He paused and added helpfully “The rest are reelly bad”
The Dwarf with the unimportant name attacked his design with a religious fervor. He produced a clean white A3 paper and made Laloo draw a neat larger outline of the bottle. This done he proceeded to cast it on the floor, went on his knees and bending over it like a five year old in a crayon company sponsored art competition for world peace, worked his magic on it. He filled it with a ring of runic letters that were finely etched at the foot of the bottle. He gave the front label a beautiful dome like shape that reminded Laloo of the evening sky over the Bay of Bengal. Creepers and mythic creatures filled in the spaces. He blended black and green and yellow and cream to create a color that looked like amber but was infinitely sadder, darker, peaceful and tempting. And that was the color the dome took. In it he poured his infinite creativity, his power, his will to mine and craft and admire. Tears filled Laloo’s eyes at the sheer beauty of it all. The hands worked like two inebriated lizards, swishing here, curling there and creating a silent racket- like a mating ritual. In dark blue bold letters that curved around themselves he wrote the name of the beer on the label- Calebras- that looked, sounded like an invocation and the very reading of it made Laloo fall on his knees with a prayer for forgiveness. Having written 5% v/v and 700 ml in small delicate cursive font and shaded the entire bottle a golden amber to indicate the brew inside, he looked up and gave a proud, happy sneering smile at Laloo. “Now it’s good!”
Laloo had to find a fault and rather unconvinced himself muttered “Calebras” and then said it twice a little louder to make it look like he was tasting the word in his mouth and looking very omniscient said “ Can we look for a better name?”
The Dwarf snorted and walked out of the glass cubicle. Before Laloo could try stopping him, he had left the office and disappeared to wherever he was from.
Laloo took up the paper and looked at if for five whole minutes. He could discern little stories playing themselves out there. He could make out thinly disguised Gods and demons at war and at love and he could even see himself in that tapestry with almost all creation, busy getting drunk in their own unique way, all blissfully happy and satiated.
If there ever could be a message from the Gods, then this was one to him.
He clasped it to his chest and rushed out of his office into the open to find the Dwarf with the unimportant name and thank the Gods for this beauty. A lightning thereby struck him from the blue sky and burned him to a crisp.
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