Skip to main content

Kitchenmate


Save for the acne covered cheeks, he was a fairly good-looking guy. Fair with think jet black hair, he exuded a certain charm that his compatriots did not possess. This was the third time I was seeing him and the second time I would utter something to him.

“Are you making pancakes?”, he inquired in an accent that was manifestly not natural to him. It was reminiscent of my own efforts to sound American by tonguing the words. What resulted were words that sounded like they required great, deliberate effort.

“I first made pancakes when I was four”, he carried on when I nodded in agreement.

The accent had already made the alarm bells in me ring. This made the wail a little louder. I laughed, faking surprise. He returned to conversing with his friends in Hindi. I caught a few words here and there. It appeared to revolve around lesbians, nudity and some indecent acts.

“Sex in public. Is that common?”, he exclaimed.

There was silence. The sudden turn from Hindi to English and the raised voice convinced me the question was directed at me.

“Sorry. What?”

“My friend here said he saw a gay couple have sex in a park in Berlin. I was wondering if you have heard of that here”.

“And why would I have heard of that?”

“Because you know, you have been hear longer than us”.

Of course, creeping on gays having sex was my past time. I made a somewhat indifferent reply. The scene repeated itself again and again. He would resume a conversation with his friends in Hindi and then suddenly break it to direct inconsequential questions to me.

“In Singapore, you had that man. Lee Kuan something. I am huge fan of him” (of course his chip sized memory did not permit him to remember the names of people he adored).

“You people in Singapore have very good universities. That is why Singapore makes so many intelligent people”. (“And this is what Pakistan makes”, his friend pointed out).

“I have my own business call Med-Me. You know it makes software all. I am in Berlin to expand”(Some research later showed that while the company did exist, it was founded in Russia, by some Russians)

After his friends left, I probed him further and he was happy to oblige, spinning stories out of thin air, one after the other. While I found it hard to believe a single word that came out of his mouth, he was entertaining, like every other charmer.

Then all of a sudden, I noticed it. It has been there, right in front of me all this while and yet somehow I had missed it. Knowingly or unknowingly, it gave his game away and I wonder if he was aware of the irony of it. I laughed, for there in big, bold, white letters on his black shirt were the words.

Blah
Blah
Blah

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Fool's Pride

I was rolling up the sleeve of my uniform, preparing for a call up that might never come, when I realised that somehow I was overcome by a strange sense of pride, a pride that wanted the length of my sleeve to be precise as I have always pictured in my mind. Any longer, I would look shabby. Any shorter, I would look amateur. Then I donned the green, tightened the velcro around my waist and looked in the mirror. It was just like before and the memories started flooding me. I never really liked it when I donned it for 2 years in a row. Then I was in a place where I detested the culture, the harsh discipline, the unreasonable demands and the lack of purpose in everything I did. But now that it was over, when I look back, it was perhaps the greatest time of my life. The suffering, the digging, the starving, the cold, the banter, the rowdiness, the jungle, the marches,the mountains, the food, the stories, the friendships, it was all worth the 2 years. A girl friend of mine once asked...
2 comments
Read more

Clubbing

Somebody up there do not want me to club. It has been one experience that has eluded me despite my multiple visits, that has brought as much excitement as me sitting in a meditative pose.  This is all the more interesting because my intention was simply to get a feel of it, and not kickstart a career as a party animal, that would either way not work for a person who dared not even to dance in the shower. Perhaps  though, it is not the circumstances, but the person to blame. I should have known I was not the party kind the very first time I set off. As I was tying my shoe laces, my father would politely enquire where I was going to. “Going to club”, I responded. “What? Like a community club?”, he carried on. I am not the most superstitious of persons, but when you are about to do something, it has to start off on the right tone. There and then, my father set the expectations of me, and all the stamps I received on my waist before entering the club became but so...
1 comment
Read more

Marriage and All That : Part 2

"How about I get married?" "Are you serious?" "Yea" "No really. If you are serious, I can start looking for one" "Uhh....Nah. I was just kidding" After a while, she stopped asking me if I were serious. Instead, she would laugh it off every time I suggested it, which was the original intention of my question. For me it was just comic relief, this idea of marriage that parents back in India would pester their children with once they reached just about where I was right now; young, working with a steady income and of totally no use at home. Though when she did ask me if I was serious, I do remember feeling a palpitation in my heart, the kind one gets when having to make a yuge decision (#trump2016 #makeamericagreatagain), knowing very well that she, along with an army of aunts, waited for my green light to start searching for a bride for the most promising of their nephews. A NRI (non residential Indian used to refer to the ...
2 comments
Read more