Contd from previous post
Perspiration without effort. Yup... energy researchers should take Mumbai's humidity factor as a model of efficiency. Even if you were to stand in one place and yawn, sweat will still form and eventually trickle down your face and go into your mouth leaving a salty taste. Yuck!
Moral of the story : Don’t yawn while sweating !
But that can’t be said of the girl I was about to meet. Before meeting her, I had communicated with her via emails. The spies who were lazing off in Goa and one of them in his own office had gotten to work. Ultimately though they had come up with zilch(an unprecedented failure) . The girl was from a relatively small city in North India and the network didn’t have many sources up there , infact just one, who unfortunately had not left his house in seven years, so didn’t know anyone other than his postman. Strange! So I decided to address this girl as the small town girl or STG.
After some feverish exchange of smses, we decided to meet at Globus in Bandra at 12pm in the afternoon. I reached late but she wasn't there yet. I decided to sneak into the shop before she reached so that when she arrived, I could start my bordering on the psychopathic pastime of surveillance. I didn’t know what to expect. There are many north Indian stereotypes out there the prominent ones being loudmouths, showoffs, heavy accessories and apparel colors that would be claimed to have been picked from the rainbow just to outshine the next door neighbor.
I was loitering around the aisles when a white top and denim clad female called my name out and tapped me on the shoulder from behind.
‘Are you the STG?’ I asked turning around. Ofcourse I knew she was the same otherwise no girl in her right mind taps me for any reason. She was comely and despite the western outfit her simplicity stood out. We exchanged pleasantries and I found out that she had been in the mall for the past half an hour. It made me feel guilty to keep a beautiful girl waiting but atleast she had her best friend to accompany her - shopping.
We boarded a rick to the sea facing part of town. I was looking out of the auto when she touched my arm and showed me the Arabian sea glistening on the right.
'Oh yeah , nice,' I said instinctively moving my arm away. As soon as I started taking in the reflections of the Arabian Sea, she tipped me on the hand again.
'And that is SRK's house on your left,' she said. Tingles of excitement ran through me which were more from her touch (not that those light knocks were unwelcome) than at the sight of the Baadshah Khan's abode. Thereafter I maintained a foot's distance from her at the back of the auto then that made us look like passengers sharing a ride rather than two people who had met up to decide more serious things in life. We reached our destination located at the downhill slope of the Bhabha road right under SRK's nose oops I mean Mannat.
As soon as I got down , the Rickshaw guy gave me this most sheepish look. “Lady business eh?’ his eyes seemed to say. I felt like pummeling him but violence wouldn’t have been appropriate especially right next to the home of India’s most romantic starlet.
'CCD or Barista?' she asked me. I looked at the two adjacent cafes. "A lot can happen over coffee" screamed a sign from CCD. I remembered going to CCD with a female a very long time ago. We had kept staring at each other's faces for quite sometime. The only action if you could call it one was leaning forward and sipping our drink. 3 hours and 200 rupees later, we waved goodbye wondering whether 180 minutes of silence and sustained gazes qualified in the Guinness book of world records for longest futile, ineffectual eye communication.
‘Barista,’ I announced enthusiastically and opened the door for her like the gentleman I really wasn’t. And as expected the next second I was back to my old ways. While she walked in front of me, I took stock of “the figure”. Hmm…not bad, I said to myself making a mental note to myself to join some gym later. Her hair was cut short and tied into a fancy hairstyle. It looked cool. At the back of her right arm there was a tiny mole, that ever enamouring pigmented growth on our not so perfect bodies. I wondered if it was a symbolic STOP sign like saying "Stop looking at my a** you dog."
‘Where do you want to sit?’ she asked
‘Huh,’ I said caught napping. I looked around, and seeing that there were just 5 tables in total(this barista is smaller than my boss’s cabin) , I thought it was a silly question but you don’t tell that to a girl , not much less to a pretty one.
‘Let’s take this one,’ I said pulling out a chair noisily. There was just one couple in the store who sat in the right hand corner. The girl was laughing incessantly. Oh! the delusion of that first relationship. The Barista barista came over and handed us the coffee menus. She didn’t pick hers up. I went through mine going through some mouth watering images. The Black Forest Blast caught my fancy and I ordered one. The STG ordered Irish Caramel Frappe in a practiced tone.
The waiter arrived and slammed the nutritionist's nightmare on the table. I attacked it with my usual disdain for etiquette. Calories floated in descending order on my drink. Whipped cream drifted on top of the ice cream that swam on top of the chocolate that floated on top of the coffee. A four-layered titanic that was about to sink into my stomach. Meanwhile, the STG neatly took her spoon and started to consume small portions of her drink.
“So your dad is Sindhi while your mom is a Jain?’ she asked while she stirred the contents of her frappe.
I looked up from the drink. Whipped cream stuck to the side of my mouth and a little bit at the nose. An appropriate question would have been, is your dad a caveman and mother a clown? I took the napkin and wiped my face.
‘Yeah, you can’t choose your parents, can you , you are stuck with them for life hahahaha.. ,’ I laughed but instantly regretted it the next moment. My laughter faded away faster than Merrill Lynch’s debtors had in the recession as the expression on her face never left. Did she not understand what I said was just a joke or did she feel I was insensitive. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt but reigned in the pathetic gags.
‘You know I also have many friends like those, half this and half that,’
‘Oh ok,’ I said feeling like a genetic experiment all of a sudden.. What was she here for - a hybrid human hunt.
We talked about many things, about her coming to Mumbai so far away from her parents. Basically I was trying to ascertain her comfort away from home. People in smaller cities tend to be relatively more attached to their families and the idea of living alone depresses them.
‘I’ve gotten used to the idea, yaar’ she said not so ebulliently. But the more I spoke to her, I got the feeling that she was very honest about all the usual questions. Her English came with a slightly heavy dose of Northern Indian accent which I have never been able to relate to instantly since my friend circle has for most part been South Indian. Only after a while one gets used to it.
The conversation then moved to hobbies and other small talk.
‘You know, I can sing and dance very well,’ she said
‘Is it?’ I said contemplating asking her to a little jig right there preferably on the table. I can't dance for nuts myself. I have the proverbial two left feet having to wear flip-flips instead of flip flops (Sorry PJ).
‘Ofcourse, what do you expect from the land of the greatest singer India has ever produced,’ she said with a slight stamp of authority. Greatest singer eh. I hope she wasn’t referring to Himesh Reshammiya. Ofcourse not, Himesh is from Bhavnagar. What was I thinking?
'Who?' I asked
'He once sang in the royal court. That's all you need to know,' she said. For the moment I was on a need to know level.
Intermittently she would stop to pull her top from the back so that the neck line wouldn’t plunge. After living in the US, for quite some time now, ogling at them new york women, I have learnt the art of self-restraint. I decided to concentrate on her eyes. She had dark circles underneath them. A sudden elation grew in me. Had she already spent sleepless nights thinking about me? Especially that photograph where I pranced around like Sallu bhai in 2 deg Celsius temp with a talebani beard , loaned sunglasses and a bead necklace around my neck. The total value of all the accessories on my body must not have been more than three dollars.
Occasionally when she would laugh, she would tilt her head 17 degrees from the vertical to look up at the ceiling and then tap the table lightly with her left hand. I felt like putting my hand there but I had torn up my own invitation to the "soft hand touches" party by acting strangely and staying out of striking range in the rickshaw.
‘I’ve got bored of this place,’ I said. ‘Do you know any other place we can go to?’
‘Well lots of people walk here,’ she said pointing towards the sea where the sun was on its last legs. Wow time had passed quickly. ‘This is the famous bandstand, ,’ she said, her tone feeling particularly happy about her educating me about Mumbai’s famous romantic landmark.
‘Yup , you mean the infamous one where the couples….,’ I winked . F*** I did it again. Did I tell you, I am a complete idiot? Never mind. Well, now you also know now I am a complete perv as well.
Like the women of the early 1900s who would run away with blushed cheeks at the first sight of their father discussing marriage, she went pink in the face.
‘You are so direct,’ she giggled and tried to avoid eye contact. Yes I am direct , I am a direct example of how not to talk to girls.
We took a rick back to Linking road where to save ourselves from the incredible heat, we walked right into Shopper’s Stop.
'What are you looking for?' she asked. Someone like you, I felt like saying. Instead i clutched the first piece of clothing that hung from the stand. It was the Men in Blue team India Tee.
‘Eeew , will you wear that? Is that your choice?’ she asked as if I was holding a mini-skirt.
I was crestfallen. I was Indian and crazy about cricket , why wouldn’t I buy an India Tee shirt. Don't be scared Ray, tell her that calmly.
'Yeah, good quality, Nike and all,' I said trying to sound defensive.
'Alright yeah.' She didn't have much of a response. She looked sad as if she wanted redesign my clothes.
We window shopped for the next fifteen minutes. Women can shop in any state of mind. sad or happy. Before leaving we decided to meet for lunch the next day.
Next day :
Not since one of my friends had given me an entirely unnecessary 5 km walking tour of Gurgaon, I had never walked so much for finding an address. I was criss-crossing the roads of the Bandra-Kurla complex dodging autos and lorries. This was where her office was. Plush buildings were positioned opposite to slums. "Near" Citibank she had told me but near Citibank actually meant that Citibank was the closest famous office. A small matter of a kilometer and a half away from her own workplace that too in 45 deg heat. Poor me!
I waited with relief in the air-conditioned lobby of her office building. 10 minutes later, one of the lift door opened and she walked through the lifts. She apologized for being late and told that her boss would need explanation so she had to give him some cock-bull story for the time-being. I was used to this, being the quintessential non-existent fictitious individual.
We lunched at Pizza hut. I told her that if I selected her, it would take me close to a year to get her to America.
‘Yeah, yeah you don’t worry I know,’
‘Ok thats good. Its not like getting from your small town to Mumbai,' I said
'Hehe, you are funny,' she said. I feigned my laughter not quite comprehending where actually did I make a joke.
‘Good, so you decide and have an answer for your parents. Give it a good long thought,' I said for the sake of parting words.
‘I am a risk professional , don’t worry about that,’ she said shaking her head from side to side. Wonder what that meant. For example where I would stand on a risk chart for single women looking to get married. Taking the two axes as probability(P) and risk impact (R) :-
a) Loyalty - I had oodles of it. I have been eating the same brand of biscuits for the past twenty years.
P( of changing loyalties) : 2% ; R : Low
b) Stability - As far as I knew, my mind was in the right place. It didn't work at times but I never really do anything extraordinary in life anyway. Oh yes I do have a job offered to me out of pity ofcourse.
P(of losing my mind) : 30% losing my job : depends on Obama , R : Medium
c) Reproduction - You don't want to know. Long story
P(of producing cute sindhi-hindi-northie jain babies) : 100%*(See note) ; R : Low
d) Hobbies - Writing, basically capturing mindless nonsense on paper
P(of leading an interesting life full of new challenges) : 60% ; R : Low with qualifications (BS on blog to be monitored )
e) Extra-curricular skills - I can drive at 60mph on a 20 mph road.
P(of enjoying a stress free life) : 1% ; Risk : High
Overall result : Low risk person, who can be twisted and manipulated to be ridden as a donkey in later life.
And that was the end of that. The girl was cute, well mannered, caring and family oriented. And most of all , I have to say , for some darn reason , she seemed impressed by me - yup no small thing that. I would even go far as calling this an epoch defining event considering that, I at most have the charming skills of a porcupine. That said, there was always this hint of naivety that lurked in all her replies. It is a good and a bad thing but she was eager to live life and that was important. But of even more importance was , that we got along very well like friends. I had found a friend but was there a wife hiding somewhere inside her? I just don't know the difference. Would the STG become a BCG (Big city girl) ? Time to dwell...
Next up is the third and final candidate after which it is decision making time. Till then... stay single.
* - Doctor consulted on this. He has no previous experience in medical science and is more interested in the sport of ping pong. It was this fascination with "balls" that I felt like approaching him for expert advice.
Perspiration without effort. Yup... energy researchers should take Mumbai's humidity factor as a model of efficiency. Even if you were to stand in one place and yawn, sweat will still form and eventually trickle down your face and go into your mouth leaving a salty taste. Yuck!
Moral of the story : Don’t yawn while sweating !
But that can’t be said of the girl I was about to meet. Before meeting her, I had communicated with her via emails. The spies who were lazing off in Goa and one of them in his own office had gotten to work. Ultimately though they had come up with zilch(an unprecedented failure) . The girl was from a relatively small city in North India and the network didn’t have many sources up there , infact just one, who unfortunately had not left his house in seven years, so didn’t know anyone other than his postman. Strange! So I decided to address this girl as the small town girl or STG.
After some feverish exchange of smses, we decided to meet at Globus in Bandra at 12pm in the afternoon. I reached late but she wasn't there yet. I decided to sneak into the shop before she reached so that when she arrived, I could start my bordering on the psychopathic pastime of surveillance. I didn’t know what to expect. There are many north Indian stereotypes out there the prominent ones being loudmouths, showoffs, heavy accessories and apparel colors that would be claimed to have been picked from the rainbow just to outshine the next door neighbor.
I was loitering around the aisles when a white top and denim clad female called my name out and tapped me on the shoulder from behind.
‘Are you the STG?’ I asked turning around. Ofcourse I knew she was the same otherwise no girl in her right mind taps me for any reason. She was comely and despite the western outfit her simplicity stood out. We exchanged pleasantries and I found out that she had been in the mall for the past half an hour. It made me feel guilty to keep a beautiful girl waiting but atleast she had her best friend to accompany her - shopping.
We boarded a rick to the sea facing part of town. I was looking out of the auto when she touched my arm and showed me the Arabian sea glistening on the right.
'Oh yeah , nice,' I said instinctively moving my arm away. As soon as I started taking in the reflections of the Arabian Sea, she tipped me on the hand again.
'And that is SRK's house on your left,' she said. Tingles of excitement ran through me which were more from her touch (not that those light knocks were unwelcome) than at the sight of the Baadshah Khan's abode. Thereafter I maintained a foot's distance from her at the back of the auto then that made us look like passengers sharing a ride rather than two people who had met up to decide more serious things in life. We reached our destination located at the downhill slope of the Bhabha road right under SRK's nose oops I mean Mannat.
As soon as I got down , the Rickshaw guy gave me this most sheepish look. “Lady business eh?’ his eyes seemed to say. I felt like pummeling him but violence wouldn’t have been appropriate especially right next to the home of India’s most romantic starlet.
'CCD or Barista?' she asked me. I looked at the two adjacent cafes. "A lot can happen over coffee" screamed a sign from CCD. I remembered going to CCD with a female a very long time ago. We had kept staring at each other's faces for quite sometime. The only action if you could call it one was leaning forward and sipping our drink. 3 hours and 200 rupees later, we waved goodbye wondering whether 180 minutes of silence and sustained gazes qualified in the Guinness book of world records for longest futile, ineffectual eye communication.
‘Barista,’ I announced enthusiastically and opened the door for her like the gentleman I really wasn’t. And as expected the next second I was back to my old ways. While she walked in front of me, I took stock of “the figure”. Hmm…not bad, I said to myself making a mental note to myself to join some gym later. Her hair was cut short and tied into a fancy hairstyle. It looked cool. At the back of her right arm there was a tiny mole, that ever enamouring pigmented growth on our not so perfect bodies. I wondered if it was a symbolic STOP sign like saying "Stop looking at my a** you dog."
‘Where do you want to sit?’ she asked
‘Huh,’ I said caught napping. I looked around, and seeing that there were just 5 tables in total(this barista is smaller than my boss’s cabin) , I thought it was a silly question but you don’t tell that to a girl , not much less to a pretty one.
‘Let’s take this one,’ I said pulling out a chair noisily. There was just one couple in the store who sat in the right hand corner. The girl was laughing incessantly. Oh! the delusion of that first relationship. The Barista barista came over and handed us the coffee menus. She didn’t pick hers up. I went through mine going through some mouth watering images. The Black Forest Blast caught my fancy and I ordered one. The STG ordered Irish Caramel Frappe in a practiced tone.
The waiter arrived and slammed the nutritionist's nightmare on the table. I attacked it with my usual disdain for etiquette. Calories floated in descending order on my drink. Whipped cream drifted on top of the ice cream that swam on top of the chocolate that floated on top of the coffee. A four-layered titanic that was about to sink into my stomach. Meanwhile, the STG neatly took her spoon and started to consume small portions of her drink.
“So your dad is Sindhi while your mom is a Jain?’ she asked while she stirred the contents of her frappe.
I looked up from the drink. Whipped cream stuck to the side of my mouth and a little bit at the nose. An appropriate question would have been, is your dad a caveman and mother a clown? I took the napkin and wiped my face.
‘Yeah, you can’t choose your parents, can you , you are stuck with them for life hahahaha.. ,’ I laughed but instantly regretted it the next moment. My laughter faded away faster than Merrill Lynch’s debtors had in the recession as the expression on her face never left. Did she not understand what I said was just a joke or did she feel I was insensitive. I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt but reigned in the pathetic gags.
‘You know I also have many friends like those, half this and half that,’
‘Oh ok,’ I said feeling like a genetic experiment all of a sudden.. What was she here for - a hybrid human hunt.
We talked about many things, about her coming to Mumbai so far away from her parents. Basically I was trying to ascertain her comfort away from home. People in smaller cities tend to be relatively more attached to their families and the idea of living alone depresses them.
‘I’ve gotten used to the idea, yaar’ she said not so ebulliently. But the more I spoke to her, I got the feeling that she was very honest about all the usual questions. Her English came with a slightly heavy dose of Northern Indian accent which I have never been able to relate to instantly since my friend circle has for most part been South Indian. Only after a while one gets used to it.
The conversation then moved to hobbies and other small talk.
‘You know, I can sing and dance very well,’ she said
‘Is it?’ I said contemplating asking her to a little jig right there preferably on the table. I can't dance for nuts myself. I have the proverbial two left feet having to wear flip-flips instead of flip flops (Sorry PJ).
‘Ofcourse, what do you expect from the land of the greatest singer India has ever produced,’ she said with a slight stamp of authority. Greatest singer eh. I hope she wasn’t referring to Himesh Reshammiya. Ofcourse not, Himesh is from Bhavnagar. What was I thinking?
'Who?' I asked
'He once sang in the royal court. That's all you need to know,' she said. For the moment I was on a need to know level.
Intermittently she would stop to pull her top from the back so that the neck line wouldn’t plunge. After living in the US, for quite some time now, ogling at them new york women, I have learnt the art of self-restraint. I decided to concentrate on her eyes. She had dark circles underneath them. A sudden elation grew in me. Had she already spent sleepless nights thinking about me? Especially that photograph where I pranced around like Sallu bhai in 2 deg Celsius temp with a talebani beard , loaned sunglasses and a bead necklace around my neck. The total value of all the accessories on my body must not have been more than three dollars.
Occasionally when she would laugh, she would tilt her head 17 degrees from the vertical to look up at the ceiling and then tap the table lightly with her left hand. I felt like putting my hand there but I had torn up my own invitation to the "soft hand touches" party by acting strangely and staying out of striking range in the rickshaw.
‘I’ve got bored of this place,’ I said. ‘Do you know any other place we can go to?’
‘Well lots of people walk here,’ she said pointing towards the sea where the sun was on its last legs. Wow time had passed quickly. ‘This is the famous bandstand, ,’ she said, her tone feeling particularly happy about her educating me about Mumbai’s famous romantic landmark.
‘Yup , you mean the infamous one where the couples….,’ I winked . F*** I did it again. Did I tell you, I am a complete idiot? Never mind. Well, now you also know now I am a complete perv as well.
Like the women of the early 1900s who would run away with blushed cheeks at the first sight of their father discussing marriage, she went pink in the face.
‘You are so direct,’ she giggled and tried to avoid eye contact. Yes I am direct , I am a direct example of how not to talk to girls.
We took a rick back to Linking road where to save ourselves from the incredible heat, we walked right into Shopper’s Stop.
'What are you looking for?' she asked. Someone like you, I felt like saying. Instead i clutched the first piece of clothing that hung from the stand. It was the Men in Blue team India Tee.
‘Eeew , will you wear that? Is that your choice?’ she asked as if I was holding a mini-skirt.
I was crestfallen. I was Indian and crazy about cricket , why wouldn’t I buy an India Tee shirt. Don't be scared Ray, tell her that calmly.
'Yeah, good quality, Nike and all,' I said trying to sound defensive.
'Alright yeah.' She didn't have much of a response. She looked sad as if she wanted redesign my clothes.
We window shopped for the next fifteen minutes. Women can shop in any state of mind. sad or happy. Before leaving we decided to meet for lunch the next day.
Next day :
Not since one of my friends had given me an entirely unnecessary 5 km walking tour of Gurgaon, I had never walked so much for finding an address. I was criss-crossing the roads of the Bandra-Kurla complex dodging autos and lorries. This was where her office was. Plush buildings were positioned opposite to slums. "Near" Citibank she had told me but near Citibank actually meant that Citibank was the closest famous office. A small matter of a kilometer and a half away from her own workplace that too in 45 deg heat. Poor me!
I waited with relief in the air-conditioned lobby of her office building. 10 minutes later, one of the lift door opened and she walked through the lifts. She apologized for being late and told that her boss would need explanation so she had to give him some cock-bull story for the time-being. I was used to this, being the quintessential non-existent fictitious individual.
We lunched at Pizza hut. I told her that if I selected her, it would take me close to a year to get her to America.
‘Yeah, yeah you don’t worry I know,’
‘Ok thats good. Its not like getting from your small town to Mumbai,' I said
'Hehe, you are funny,' she said. I feigned my laughter not quite comprehending where actually did I make a joke.
‘Good, so you decide and have an answer for your parents. Give it a good long thought,' I said for the sake of parting words.
‘I am a risk professional , don’t worry about that,’ she said shaking her head from side to side. Wonder what that meant. For example where I would stand on a risk chart for single women looking to get married. Taking the two axes as probability(P) and risk impact (R) :-
a) Loyalty - I had oodles of it. I have been eating the same brand of biscuits for the past twenty years.
P( of changing loyalties) : 2% ; R : Low
b) Stability - As far as I knew, my mind was in the right place. It didn't work at times but I never really do anything extraordinary in life anyway. Oh yes I do have a job offered to me out of pity ofcourse.
P(of losing my mind) : 30% losing my job : depends on Obama , R : Medium
c) Reproduction - You don't want to know. Long story
P(of producing cute sindhi-hindi-northie jain babies) : 100%*(See note) ; R : Low
d) Hobbies - Writing, basically capturing mindless nonsense on paper
P(of leading an interesting life full of new challenges) : 60% ; R : Low with qualifications (BS on blog to be monitored )
e) Extra-curricular skills - I can drive at 60mph on a 20 mph road.
P(of enjoying a stress free life) : 1% ; Risk : High
Overall result : Low risk person, who can be twisted and manipulated to be ridden as a donkey in later life.
And that was the end of that. The girl was cute, well mannered, caring and family oriented. And most of all , I have to say , for some darn reason , she seemed impressed by me - yup no small thing that. I would even go far as calling this an epoch defining event considering that, I at most have the charming skills of a porcupine. That said, there was always this hint of naivety that lurked in all her replies. It is a good and a bad thing but she was eager to live life and that was important. But of even more importance was , that we got along very well like friends. I had found a friend but was there a wife hiding somewhere inside her? I just don't know the difference. Would the STG become a BCG (Big city girl) ? Time to dwell...
Next up is the third and final candidate after which it is decision making time. Till then... stay single.
* - Doctor consulted on this. He has no previous experience in medical science and is more interested in the sport of ping pong. It was this fascination with "balls" that I felt like approaching him for expert advice.
