I really wonder whether this place will be of any help to my fellow beings. I have to tell this to the “Gentleman with the overcoat” who hosts a television debate show about mundane and trivial things so that he gets another interesting topic to fight about.
Now you may wonder what place I’m talking about?
Let me give you a clue. This is where people drain their wallets and this is the place that epitomises the spendthrift of my people.
Did you get it? I think you would have.
Yes. It’s the Shopping Mall.
I’m watching kids, couples of all ages, teen boys and girls roaming the floors of Vijaya Forum Mall in Vadapalani, Chennai. Most of them do something called ‘Window Shopping’ and there were more than a few who actually did shop there. I watch them all sitting inside the vegetarian restaurant ID, waiting for a friend, who is working in this mall as a consultant. His office is situated on the top floor of the mall. So I felt that meeting him here would be better for both of us. In my case the advantage is the proximity to my home.
Of all the restaurants in this mall, ID is my favourite. I've a lot of memories associated with it too. This restaurant is not frequented by young couples, who prefer the posh cushions of Cafe Coffee Day. What you find here is mostly pot bellied uncles adorning either a salt and pepper hair or a vacant space on their heads, with their families.
While I sit here, my mind invariably goes back to the last time I sat inside this restaurant. It was a Saturday morning when I sat in one of the two seater tables with my girlfriend discussing the ways to make our parents accept this relationship. The positivity in her tone still reverberates inside my head and I didn't have the least idea that it was going to be our last vis-a-vis conversation before the severing of the relationship (breakup is too cliched). I don’t want to go into the details of why it came to an end.
Now to more important things. I would like to say something about the person I'm about to meet. At 6 ft 1" with a square shaped face, which will always be cleanly shaved without a hint of a stubble and sporting a square rimmed spectacles with a flat abdominal region, he was simply a heartthrob for many. A walk down the corridor with him and the unmistakable stares and ogles at him would definitely make that a forgettable walk for the person next to him. No prizes for guessing who that unfortunate soul would have been! The embarrassing moment was when people enquire about him. But I was extremely confident that he would never fall for someone. Why? Simply because he thinks too highly of himself. The narcissism would render it impossible for him to accept that he has fallen for someone. Well, that's what I thought until he said, "I'm in love".
I didn’t want to sit idle until his arrival. So I ordered a cup of tea. My cup would have been half empty when a giant of a figure walked to the table I was sitting and boisterously shouted, "Hello Sir" and hugged me, while I made no move to get up. "How long it's been since we met!"
Well I comprehended the rhetoric to be a question and replied "2 years". To save me the blushes, he laughed loudly, attracting the attention of the fellow diners and said "That long!"
"So, how are you?" I asked him.
Before giving me a reply, he points his index finger at the waiter and then at the glass indicating it to be filled with water. I bent my head down, looking at the half empty cup feeling angry at his gesturing, which could have been at the very least polite. I then repeated the question, for which his left hand produced a thumbs up while his right hand was holding the glass gulping down the water. All I could manage was a fake smile.
When he repeated the same question to me, all I could do was to put on the same smile I produced earlier.
"How is work? You are still in the same job?" he enquired.
"Fortunately or unfortunately I'm not really sure but yes, I'm still with the same company" I replied sidestepping the first question on how my work was.
"You are still the same." Said he with a glee on his face and continued, "Giving a cynical reply for a normal question".
Now I couldn't help but smile at that and appreciated him for the excellent catch on the cynic part.
Then he asked me, "You aren't thinking about moving on to another job?"
This is one of the several questions you have to endure if you happen to work in an Indian Information Technology company. For many in my industry, “Promotion, Onshore assignments, Job switching” is equivalent to “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”. Those are the means through which a common denominator called “Salary hike” can be achieved. When such a question is posted, one has to deftly handle it in such a way that the conversation gets over with our answer. Sadly without realising the trap I'm setting foot in, I replied, "Yeah I should but I am unable to decide what I want in life"
That is all the impetus he needed. The sermons that followed ranged from how the job market is today to how difficult it is to pass through an interview. He added one or two lines about how I'm wasting my life, given the talent I possess and more sentences on how he is in his third organisation in three years. Since his answer included everything about his work, I didn't bother asking him about it. Amidst the lecture about the job market, start up ventures of his acquaintances, he ordered two plates of masala dosa.
When I was quite relieved that a perilous conversation was over, he sowed the seed for another. "You are still single or" he paused and put a mocking smile on his face and said, "into any relationship?"
"Nothing at present".
“So there was something in the past, isn’t it?”
How can I not applaud his analytical skills. Even the most ingenious mind wouldn’t have cracked that.
“You got me” I said lifting my hands in the form of a mock surrender. What happened next was something I didn’t expect to happen.
“Are you serious? You really had a girl?”
When I nodded and mouthed the name of the girl, his smiling face turned into one that emanated envy for a fleeting moment.
Wait a minute.
This man, who was the heartthrob of many in my college is actually jealous of me? This is definitely not what I thought would be his reaction. Honestly I couldn’t control my laughter but did the chuckling within myself.
“Its her huh. But why did you...?” Words failed to come out of his mouth.
“It’s a long story. I would prefer not to get into that conversation!”
He could have stopped it there but continued, “What crap are you talking about? What’s your problem in telling me?”
Here I did another blunder. “Why are you so interested in poking your nose into another person’s life?” The moment I said that I regretted saying that sentence. Obviously as expected he was taken aback by that riposte. I immediately apologized and said the truth, “I’m sorry. I don't really wanna talk about what happened between us!”
He was looking at me with the look of a man who is staring at an alien. I could've either lied about what happened between us, taking a cue from every romantic movie on earth or could've told the truth. But the complication is whether either of the versions would satisfy him. He might start probing me further to bring out the truth. I looked at him to see if his reaction has changed but his gaze and silence remained the same.
I could have left it there but I continued my madness in the following confession. “OK. Stop it. I’ll tell you the truth. I simply got scared that she'd leave me and didn’t want to end up with a broken heart. So I told her that the relationship cannot continue. That my dear is my love story!”
Again I expected him to pass a comment on my stupid line of thought but surprisingly his mouth remained closed. I looked at him with inquisitive eyes and waited for his response. But he remained silent deep in thought. All of a sudden he looked at his watch and said, “It's getting late for me, let's catch up some other day” and shook my hands.
This abrupt curtailing of our meeting took me by surprise and made me guilty. I cursed myself for the umbrage. Is that why he left early? Or it could simply be that it was getting late for him or he got offended that the girl who was in a relationship with me had never acknowledged this cupid boy. “That's not possible”, I told myself. I felt that it was definitely a sudden departure and not a calculated one that I would generally associate with him.
So instead of brooding over his departure, I concentrated on having the masala dosa. When my plate had become empty, my mobile phone vibrated to indicate the arrival of a message. I opened it, read it and shut off my phone. I wanted to hit myself hard for meeting him. I wanted to kick myself for not saying a proper negative answer for his question about relationship. At that moment I wanted to throw the glass at someone and then bang my head against the table. If he had been here, I would've additionally wanted to strangle him.
The message read:
“I owe you a lot in life. You are in the same situation that I was in some time back. I know that feeling bro.You both make a terrific couple. I want you two to get back into the relationship. I'll talk to her and get back to you. Don't curse me and don't thank me yet because I owe you this”
What does he owe me? Nothing that I can think of. But still he wants to meddle in my life.
What else did he say? He was in the same situation as me? Whatever his situation was, I have no idea.
