It was around 4:00 in the afternoon and we’re cooking our lunch  – okay, to be precise, the chemist was cooking and I just finished eating some slices of tesco sweets enriched with preservatives. Waiting for the lunch, I was suddenly in a mood to throw a sort of  beauty pageant question.

‘If you will have to give me a chemical element, what would it be and why?’

Sushan, another flatmate, who was having his lunch was giving me a face that screams of something like ‘How could you even ask such kind of question? My Gooood!’  

Laughing, I went on. ‘Would it be PB-plumbium (plumbum, I was corrected), K-potassium, Mg-magnesium, Mn-Manganese,  Au-gold,  would you give me the lightest element – hydrogen, or the second lightest – helium?’

Sushan couldn’t help but quip, ‘I can see that you have more knowledge in chemistry than mathematics!’ 

No answer for a while. Then a counter question, ‘How much do you want?’ while mixing the pasta in the oiled and salted boiling water.  

I said that it doesn’t really matter, as long as the reason is given.  Hah, the question seems tricky, besides I don’t know the units of measurements for all elements.  Well, maybe a one year supply of that element then? 

He said, ’Well, I will give you carbon.’  

C – carbon?! Like those you use for making copies? Hmm I don’t really like the answer… 

But he’s not yet finished and asked me whether I want to get rich, to write, or  another choice  that I forgot. 

So get rich maybe so I can write whenever I want? 

He said, ‘Well then I will give you diamond’.  Whoa, I didn’t know that diamond is a carbon.  He adds, ‘and if you want to write, I will give you graphite…’

So there, we were having pasta with egg and tuna and engaged in a conversation on the varieties and uses of carbon. I enjoyed my lunch.

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