#ComeCloser
We are all thrill seekers and love seeing secret agents everywhere… in fiction and in our real life as well. I have this strange feeling that we mortals love our brush with thrill whenever it is possible. I’ll tell you of the strangest encounter with a secret agent that I had just a few weeks back.
Specky, my wife, and I were taking a leisurely walk on the Mall in Shimla and were happily watching people enter and exit shops. It is always a great feeling to watch tourists smile. You then know that you aren’t wasting your time by coming to that city to vacation. Just then I heard a rather cryptic sentence. There was a feminine voice that said, ‘Remember to identify the right moment for Dips… or everything is lost!’
I turned but couldn’t identify any face that I could link with such a mind-boggling sentence. Who is Dips? What is this fellow up to? Is there a murder being planned? One reads of so many people pushing their friends or spouse over the cliff… and Shimla does have a lot of them. I even stood up and peeped down half expecting a shriek and some poor fellow plummeting down. But no, there was no one being pushed right then.
I waited.
The moment the same voice spoke, I turned and found myself staring into the eyes of a young girl who couldn’t possibly have murder on her mind. I asked, ‘Who is Dips?’
‘You means what?’ she said. This mystery is getting deeper, I thought. So I decided to play with her and said, ‘Yes, I mean what is Dips? #ComeCloser so that I can hear you better.’
‘A formula,’ she said.
‘Aha!’ I thought, ‘A secret formula.’ Before I could celebrate my stumbling upon a spy network dealing with some top secret formula, this young girl said, ‘Well, DIPS is our way of remembering to take care of our skin.’
I was somewhat confounded but asked, ‘What is all this secrecy about skin care? I thought everyone knows how to take care of one’s skin.’
She smiled and asked, ‘And how do you take care of your skin?’
‘That’s easy,’ I said, ‘I make sure that I eat the right kind of food and avoid an overdose of fried stuff. I mean I love eating leafy veggies and lots of fruits. Now that I am out here in the nice warm sun, I haven’t forgotten to use my sun-screen, you see. And sunshades would naturally add to the protection.’
‘What else do you do?’ she insisted.
‘I do shave carefully and use gentle soaps,’ I added, ‘I know of a friend who used a strong detergent on his body and suffered a lot. Obviously, I prefer reading books and playing with ideas than getting knotted into thinking about tasks unfinished or tasks that are confounding me.’
‘You mean you try to avoid stress,’ she said.
It was only after this discussion that she told me that I was eligible to be a part of her secret society called dips. ‘Dips is all about the right diet, remaining informed about skin care, using all valid protection every time you step out in the sun, and avoiding stress.’
This was simple enough and I hastily said my good-bye and went over to some other spot to be with my imaginary search of real spies and real secret agents. But my encounter with this agent called DIPS was interesting enough to be shared here.
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#ComeCloser toskin care via Vicco turmeric Cream
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Arvind Passey
13 June 2015
