Adho paru - Minnal

I have written over past few years about how I love to travel and meet people and how my work helps me with just that. I have not moved out of Bombay in close to 3 months. This is the longest period since I joined work where I have had no travel

The last time I travelled on work was in early June. I was in Chennai and as part of some project I found myself being ushered into a house in Abhiramapuram area. I was accompanied by my colleague NonStop (NS in short) who in her sheer excitement of being in Chennai, a land where she could find girls who could speak my language, had for reasons beyond my understanding, decided seal my fate with a girl, any girl that day itself. (Yes, it is mission among a select group in office to get me hitched, regardless of the fact that everyone but one in the 'select' group is single). Anyways, her obsession had reached ridiculous levels. She could be spotted nudging me to put a 'looku' whenever she spotted a girl within 100m radius. So what if the girl was only 18. Sigh!

Anyways back to the point. We were sitting in this house in Abhiramapuram talking to the lady of the house. As the conversation skittered between personal topics and others, she (the lady of the house) let it out that she had a daughter who was going to do her MBA. Clearly, 'ting ting ting' happened and NS, shedding all pretensions of professional conduct, stamped my leg. I was quite sure that the lady would have noticed this very minor but obvious infraction of conduct, but I was saved by the telephone. The lady excused herself and this gave me enough time to send a glare back at NS, which I am sure, gave her the message, Vellilai va! neeya naana paathukkalam (come outside I say, let us decide on this today!). NS being NS wasn't willing to let me have the last word, even in the non-verbal communication that we were having and continued to make some contorted facial expressions that I think meant – ‘ K to you’. While we were in the midst of this very engaging conversation, we heard the lady giving out some instructions on the phone. And we both realised that she had a just yelled out her daughter's name and had also dropped in a totally irrelevant piece of information that she had taken the car out and wasn’t expected back for a while.

NS, gave me a sly smile which meant, 'hmm.. that chick drives a car.'. She got was a cold shoulder in return. We soon resumed our conversation with the lady, and both NS and I, were deeply engrossed in our work related aspect of the visit, eager to finish it off quickly. One numbers full-plate meals at Saravana Bhavan was just half an hour away now. 'Trrrring' the door bell rang and in walked a cute girl in an Orangish-yellow sari. She was clearly coming back home from a wedding. She was about to start a conversation with her mom which was stopped midway through the first sentence, when she sensed our presence. She quickly headed for her room. My eyes followed her till she was out of sight. I felt I had seen her earlier somewhere and was running a 'quick search and retrieve function' mentally. It wasn’t too successful.

I was desperately avoiding looking at NS, who I could sense was sporting such a wide grin that I was sure that the edges of her mouth were close to her ears or maybe eyes or maybe both. Anyways we got back to the task at hand and soon forgot about this incident. We were tired, the heat was sapping away our energy and the enticement of Thaair saadam with Vadu manga and mor molaga (Curd rice with pickles) was just too irresistible. We completed our work and were about to leave when S(the girl's name – you think I wouldn’t remember that??) emerges from her room, in a very short split skirt, drinks cold water from the fridge and walks back. Phew! Minnal

I have travelled length of this country and over 3 years met close to 1000 people, visited around 200 odd homes, in Chennai, Bombay, Delhi, Punjab, Chandigarh (land of Priyanka Chopra, at least in the movie Fashion), Bangalore and so on. Visited some of the most affluent people to the poorest, sat through in the most mind numbing sessions and yet never once had a bumped into a girl of nubile age. And finally, in Chennai..

I did not want to leave the house immediately, but didn’t have much of a choice. I was contemplating, whether I should drop my visiting card (but that would be too in your face) or maybe leave my notebook or cell phone behind and use that as an excuse to drop in later. But my better judgement prevailed. I knew the house and her name. I didn’t think I needed anything else. So we quietly left.

The 'select group' congregated at Amethyst coffee shop that evening and subsequently in Bombay where this issue was debated. NS raised a question on how I knew what a split skirt was and how I could identify a split skirt within a split second. The first part was answered by a simple glare that made her retreat and for the second part, I gave her a detailed explanation on how it was possible to figure out whether it was a split skirt or a skirt or shorts. She wasn’t convinced. Here I had to enlist support of another dear colleague Super-SoDi. Super-SoDi hails from South Delhi and hence by default is more knowledgeable in such superficial matters. Super-SoDi ruled in my favour and the conversation then moved to what now? That is when my colleague Punch-mama and I decided to take control. The two of us have loafed the streets of Chennai in our respective heydays and have a reputation for ‘street’ smartness After careful analysis that included parameters like location of her house, her neighbourhood, family profile, the language she spoke (mix of English than Tamil), her dressing sense etc etc we drew up her profile and shortlisted three colleges from which she could’ve graduated. Punch-mama's wife who hails from one of the shortlisted colleges offered all her assistance.

In a few days that topic died its natural death. From making three trips to Chennai in May-June, I don't see any more coming up in the near future. Such is life!

Glossary

NonStop (NS)- She speaks NonStop. Period. Does not even pause to catch some air. I think she isn’t human . Whoever said brevity is the soul of wit was clearly mistaken.

Super SoDi- An absolutely affable person who hails from south Delhi. For the uninitiated it is the land of air kisses and ‘bling’ attire fashionistas. Everything that happens to her is in the superlative. She always has the weird-est of dreams, funny-est of incidents, sad-est of days, embarrassing-est of moments and so on. You get the picture.

Punch-mama Or Punchline mama never fails to deliver the right (and corniest) of punch lines in every presentation to senior management.For e.g. ‘From Now to Wow’ .I am sure he researches and prepares hard and waits for opportune time to deliver the punches.