Journal du Jour

The Indomitable Mr. Joshi

It never really mattered to Joshi whether he was cold or not. Which was something that amazed his friends. After all, Joshi came from a very warm part of India where the average temperature on the coldest day of the year was 80 degrees. Yet in this part of the US the average temperature on the coldest day of the year can hover between ludicrous and downright evil. But to Joshi this was a new experience. While all his neighbours, most of whom grew up within 10 miles of where they lived, were bundled up if they had to go outside to the supermarket or shovel their driveways after one of the incessant snowstorms that plagued this part of country between Christmas and the end of March each and every year like clockwork; Joshi could been seen on his deck at the back of his house in just a long sleeve shirt and a pair of flimsy slacks. Joshi would sit on his deck in one of the wrought aluminium chairs around a wrought iron aluminium table, upon which would sat his mug of coffee that had icicles hanging from it. While he was completely oblivious to the world around him, he would sip the coffee which by then was no longer hot. In fact, it ceased being hot once he walked outside wearing his slippers which had been given to him by his wife, who never joined him outside and was never seen by the neighbourhood between the dates of October 15 and May 15. Those, believe it or not, are the first and last days of frost in this part of the country.

But because Joshi was impervious to the cold weather and in fact seemed to revel in it, his vegetable garden was the envy of the entire town, not just the neighbourhood. As soon as the revellers had fallen into a drunken stupor and the calendar had changed the year, Joshi was outside the very next day with his cultivator waiting for the sun to rise so that he could see what he was doing. As soon as the sun rose at 7.30 the whirl of the cultivator broke the quiet air and those of his neighbours who had not indulged in the New Year festivities, woke up with a start and those who were awake, watched not in awe but incredulity as they saw him begin turning over the soil. None wished him a Happy New Year because in their eyes there was nothing happy about it. They had had their slumber disturbed by what they deemed a maniac. But having said that, they never really objected because later in the year Joshi shared his vast produce with his neighbours. So they really couldn't complain. When most of his sane neighbours were shivering inside their homes, Joshi was out there in his shirt sleeves planting his onion sets and three types of potatoes. They would wave to him with a sad look on their faces, because to them there must be something very wrong with the chap. Joshi's wife Serena never joined him outside. But she was very glad she had married a man who was outside the mainstream of humanity. While others had to run to the grocery store, all she had to do was tell her husband that she was making a certain dish which required red onions and potatoes, and he would gleefully run outside and dig up what she needed, even in a blizzard. That was the time when some of his neighbours saw him in just his long sleeve shirt and flimsy slacks with a shovel, not to clear his driveway, that was left to the landscaper to tackle but instead to dig up what his wife needed. Most times his neighbours would turn around walk right to the liquor cabinet and pour themselves and their wives who drank in sympathy with their husbands. They had been traumatised by the vision of this small Indian man out in a blizzard gladly digging up vegetables for his family dinner. In fact, a couple of his immediate neighbours had never touched alcohol in their lives not because they were alcoholics, but because they never liked the taste but had now become full-fledged members of the single malt scotch whiskey club of Clarence Street.

One day when Joshi was outside after a major ice storm had hit the area examining his prize roses, again dressed as he always was, one of his neighbours came to a skidding halt, literally, and crashed into their own garage. The man came over to talk to Joshi because he felt the crash was caused directly due to him taking his eyes off what they were doing because they were so traumatised by the vision of him.

"How can you do this?" the very disturbed neighbour asked him.

"Do what Sam?" Joshi asked, his teeth not chattering as the Sam's were.

"This," he replied unable to form sentences because his lips were quickly freezing.

"How's your car?" asked Joshi calmly, his lips still flesh coloured while his neighbour Sam's were quickly turning blue. Sam tried to point to the roses, but his arms had stopped functioning properly and he couldn't lift them. "This," was the only word he managed to get out of his mouth as his saliva had frozen and he spat out an ice cube. Joshi thought him weird but wasn't interested in continuing the conversation with his neighbour.

"You had better go inside now Sam, before you freeze to death," said Joshi pointing to Sam's now blue neck and pronounced wheezing, "you shouldn't be out in this kind of weather, it's not good for you."

Sam tried to scream at Joshi, but when he opened his mouth it stuck open and all that came out was a quiet stream of unintelligible words and a couple of small ice cubes.

"Come with me," said Joshi calmly as he tried to turn his neighbour around so he was facing his house, but it became an impossible task as his legs had frozen to the ground. "Give me one moment," added Joshi as he walked calmly into his house completely unfazed by the weather. He filled a bucket with hot water in his kitchen and walked back outside. His neighbour had not moved in fact, his predicament was getting worse as the ground around Sam's legs had now begun to keep him in a lock. Joshi understood the immediacy of the problem and threw the bucket of water on his friend. It was a sight to be seen, as witnessed by all his immediate neighbours, who stood by their large windows surveying the scene. As soon as the water hit Sam, he began to crack and there was suddenly a shriek from him which disturbed the mice who were hibernating under Joshi's steps. Joshi realised he had only a minute or so before Sam began to refreeze. He had thawed only for a short time.

Joshi immediately threw down the bucket and began to push Sam towards his house. As he did so, Sam's wife came out dressed as if she was on her way to the Antarctic to retrace Scott's journey and helped push her husband indoors. They finally got him inside where his wife began the arduous task of defrosting him. She was not familiar with the technique as she searched YouTube for information, apparently nobody had ever had this issue before, so she had to improvise and that caused Sam some undue pain. It wasn't a good day in Sam Butcher's house. First of all, his garage was barely holding up after his car had slammed into one of the support beams and then on top of that, he himself nearly became a replacement lawn ornament for the dwarf that had stood guard over his property for the last ten years, and now he had begun to defrost. And as he did, the puddle on the kitchen floor became deeper and deeper until his children were made to mop it up. They too did not have a good feeling about Joshi. Until they realised that he supplied them with fresh carrots of all different sizes and colours which they took to school for show and lie, because they told everyone they grew the carrots. Once Sam was human again and no longer an oversized icicle, he looked out of the window at Joshi who was still out there examining his prize rose bushes and demanded that he be given a triple single malt scotch whiskey. He then swore he would never talk to Joshi again in his life. That only lasted until the ground began to thaw and Joshi was asked what exotic vegetable he was going to grow that year.

"Rutabaga!" he shouted and the words reverberated across the neighbourhood as everyone ran to look it up on the internet. Then they smiled knowing they would be eating something new that year. And so Joshi was the toast of the neighbourhood when later that year he presented himself wearing the same long sleeve shirt and flimsy pants at their doors with a sample of his bumper rutabaga crop in his hand.