The Trial-room

At the mall, you cannot pick up a new shirt or pant and head home, based on just the color and the size-number. Different brands have a different fitting. It is important to try out the clothes.

Trial-rooms in malls are busy places. About 4-5 trial-rooms are stacked in a row. However, contenders for these rooms are many. Time is at a premium- you must be sensitive and eject quickly, when it is your turn.

Trial-room usage follows a particular drill. You ask your wife and children to wait just outside the trial-room area. That way, you can get an unbiased opinion when you step out in your new dress.

Once inside the trial room, and you’ve worn the new shirt and pant, you suddenly lose the plot. The reflection in the mirror is totally unflattering. You try everything- pose with your hands in the pockets; or leave the shirt out to look cool and casual; or tuck the shirt in…to look formal and business-like, nothing appears right at all. You pose sideways, looking at the mirror through the corner of your eyes, or face the mirror with your back to it, and glance back “Exorcist style”; whatever you do, you still look like a clown. May be, it is the fitting- the trousers are too baggy. Other unrelated thoughts hold you hostage- when did the forehead grow to such huge proportions? You tousle the hair a bit, to conceal the forehead. And yes, you need a second opinion on these trousers for sure.

Wearing the new trousers, you tiptoe out of the trial-room. Wife is nowhere, kids are nowhere. Where did they go? They were supposed to wait here, wait just here! You feel exactly like Vali did. He asked Sugreeva to wait outside the cave. When Vali emerged from the cave, Sugreeva was nowhere, he had vanished into thin air. No wonder, Vali flew into such a rage. It was a breach of trust. Like Vali, you look this way and that, drifting well away from the orbit of the trial-room. There is irritation, there is anger, there is confusion- where did they all go?

Suddenly, you find the salesman tugging at your new trousers from the back, trying to yank it off. “This is too much! You think I am running away with these new trousers? I am looking for my wife and children! Do you get it? Do you get it?”  you snap back. While he tries to calm you down, you are now in a different mood altogether, “I don’t want any of these clothes at all!” and head back to the trial-room in a huff.

To your horror, you cannot recall which trial-room you used. They all look the same. Was it the first trial-room, or perhaps the one in the middle? What is worse, now all the trial-rooms are locked and busy. In the interim period, when you loitered around, someone appears to have encroached and taken over the same trial-room.

Anger gets converted into a panic attack. Where is your pant that you left behind in the trial-room? What if someone walked away with your pant or the wallet? Your entire life hinges on that wallet- your debit cards, your credit cards, your driver’s license, your PAN card, just about everything. Lose your wallet and life will be completely derailed for months on end.

The mind is in a tizzy. Common-sense goes for a toss. You want your pant back. That’s all that matters. The search requires unconventional methods. You lie down on the floor, peering through the gap under the trial-room door. This trial-room does not have your pant. What about the next one? You crawl, on all fours, to the next trial-room, with your head lateral to the floor. At that opportune moment, a lady walks out from the trial-room. The last thing she expects is a Peeping Tom on the floor. “What are you doing?” she stutters, totally shocked. You are equally alarmed and blabber incoherently, “My pant! My pant! I am looking for my pant! Not the one I am wearing- the one I left in the trial-room!”

Luckily, you spot your pant. “My pant!”- you exclaim and rush in. You are about to slam the trial-room door shut, when the lady stops you, holding the door, in a quick countermove, “You cannot use! My clothes are inside!”

It’s as if the confusion will never end. By now, the security man has reached the trial-room and douses the fire before it snowballs out of control. Absent-mindedly, you had strolled into the womens' trial room, a blunder in the first place!

Trial-rooms surely have a lot of room…to turn into a veritable “trial by fire”! Phew!

PS: Not that this incident happened, but when you let your imagination loose, these are possibilities nonetheless, and we have come dangerously close to some of them! 

Styles of footpath walkers!

When you think of a walker, you imagine Dilip Kumar- strolling past woods and glades singing- “suhaanaa safar aur ye mausam haseen!” The “dreamer” is a footpath walker exactly like him- happiness is writ large on the face. He is a rare species alright, but you cannot miss him. There is a song on his lips and a spring in his steps. Clearly, he is in his own dream world- a free spirit, sauntering down the footpath for no apparent rhyme or reason!

The “thinker” follows a different walking style. He clasps his hands at the back. The gait is measured, the eyebrows are knitted, and the head is held at an upward tilt. He is pondering over something overly serious- maybe the density at the center of a blackhole. Our footpaths are notorious minefields- strewn with obstacles that defy enumeration- from cow-dung to open trenches. Thinking about a blackhole, our friend may soon find himself in one, if he is not alert.

This is the age of multitasking. The “multi-tasker” does a lot simultaneously, as though he is an “ashtaavadhaani” of sorts.  As he walks on the footpath, he carries on a conversation on the mobile and watches memes, all at the same time. With his head lowered and glued to the mobile, he is oblivious to his surroundings. The onus is entirely on you to get out of harm’s way. And if you have two such absent-minded “multi-taskers” walking in opposite directions, well, it is perfect recipe for imminent disaster!

The speed of the walk must be carefully calibrated on the footpath. You are walking at a certain pace, singing “suhaanaa safar”, only to find the song and step abruptly come to a halt. In front, is a person walking at a snail’s pace. Our footpaths are mostly single-lane paths- not wide enough for you to overtake and move on. You are stuck to the same track, with little choice but to follow.

If the person is from the opposite gender, the mind goes into a tailspin. Is it ok to follow? Are you following too close? Is she going to turn back and slap you? The last thing you want- is to be pulled up by the moral police for stalking. However, it is not easy to slow down your pace, especially if you have a long foot span.  In slowing down, you must walk with your knees bent, much like a burglar on the prowl. That would bring the police behind you even faster!

Faced with this crisis, you look for an exit strategy. Once the traffic by the side of the road eases, like a tearaway train at a crossing, you take matters into your own hands (rather to your own feet). You get onto the road, double up your speed, pass the snail, and get back onto the footpath. That done, you heave a sigh of relief and break into “suhaanaa safar” once more!

Sometimes, you are on a sticky wicket. You are walking on the footpath. So is the person from the opposite side. You swerve to the left. He follows you. You swerve to the right. He follows you. It’s as if his limbs are tied to yours by an unseen umbilical cord, and try as you might, you cannot avoid him. Both feel equally sheepish, helplessly trying to dodge past the other. You screech to a halt, inches away from a full, frontal collision!

Couples, after their first year of marriage, cannot walk together on the same footpath. Invariably, the man walks miles ahead of the lady. After he has reached the next set of traffic lights, he looks back, spots the wife trailing, and mumbles in irritation. That done, he waits not, but continues to surge ahead, towards the next set of traffic lights.

Some walkers cover the entire width of the footpath, as though the footpath is their grandfather’s property.  You can’t blame this walker; he is built that way. Years of pumping iron at the gymnasium, has given him a chiseled body. Frequent gym-exercisers have an anatomical problem- their arms don’t hang down like the rest of us. They are stretched out, as though they are stricken with a boil under their armpits. Our friend walks with a swagger, with his arms spread out, like Ghatotkacha doing the rounds. In the process, he covers the entire breadth of the footpath. How are you going to pass him? The only solution is to shrink into a foetus posture, squeeze yourself between his arm and body, and bolt ahead.

Once past him, the relief is immense, and you can continue with your favorite song- “suhaanaa safar aur ye mausam haseen!”

 

The turn of the year...and the looming exams!

“Dilli abhi door hai”- Delhi is too far away, said the king of Delhi. The student felt the same. "The board exams are only next year"- too far to worry about. As the old year gave way to the new, the equation changed. The exam was not just "this year", it was “now.” You counted the days. “What? Only 40-odd days to the finals?” Time had suddenly shrunk, as though in a time-warp. How did it all melt away?

There was so much to do and so little time. You felt like a batsman who had idled away, blocking balls, while the asking rate had swelled to unmanageable proportions. Even if you hit sixes every ball, you would still fall short of the target. The sense of immediacy hit you in the face. You had to do something, and it had to be now.

There was no respite from the looming crisis. When you took a walk in the evening, some acquaintance grabbed you, “Board exams coming up, right? No pressure! All the best!” When you went to school, teachers spoke in a monotone, “As you embark on this journey of life, the board exams are like the steppingstone. Life itself is an exam.” School friends no longer spoke about juicy topics. They rubbed it in further with- “You know Sridhar? That chap finished all his portions in September! Last September! Can you beat it?” Closer to home, sister asked, “Did you start solving previous year question papers?” Truly, it was a pressure cooker situation, with no escape valve.

The first thing to do was to prepare a timetable. After all, proper time management can solve all problems. With the ruler and pencil, you meticulously drew out an elaborate timetable in the rough notebook - the remainder of the days till the exams and the activity for each day. The day had to start early. “6:30 am to 7 am- Maths”, “7 am to 7:30 am- Physics”, “7:30 am to 8 am- Chemistry”. The afternoons were blocked with “solve papers”. The evening slot was covered with “solve more papers”. Only 30 min were set aside for lunch and another 30 min for dinner. Putting everything down on paper, took the load off the mind. It was as if, it was all too easy- as easy as a-b-c! You felt supremely elated.

Leaving the notebook open had its perils. Sister glanced at it, “Such a packed timetable! When will you take bath?” You got angry and snapped back, “Why are you poking your nose in my affairs? May be, I won’t take bath!” and shut the notebook tight, away from all prying eyes. But sister had a point. Now, the entire table had to be redrawn on a fresh page to fit in “bath time”. One hour of bath time seemed too indulgent. Only Romans did that. May be, 15 minutes was optimum. But with the bath time introduced, every other activity had to be equally shifted. It now read- “8 am to 8:15 am- bath”, “8:15 am to 8:45 am- Biology”. It just made the timetable unreadable. May be, 15 more minutes after the bath- the “8:15 am to 8:30 am slot” can be devoted to “memorize all formulae”. That would move Biology to 8:30 am – 9 am and the rest of the day fitted into a nice rhythm.

The vessels were clanking in the kitchen. The pressure-cooker (the real one) was letting out a burst of steam every few seconds. Mother was cooking. The maid was crisscrossing repeatedly to stack up the washed vessels. I was sitting on a make-shift table and writing away frantically. Sister asked, “What are you doing sitting here?” I retorted, “Don’t talk to me. I am solving a previous year Maths paper!” Sister persisted- “But why are you doing it in the kitchen?” “That’s because they told us to practice mock tests in all conditions…silly! We can get any exam-center, even Crawford market! Shut up and don’t disturb me now!”

Collecting previous year question papers was a full-time occupation. There were too many schools in the neighborhood. “Premier high school”, “Little Angels”, “Auxilium”, “King George”, “Balmohan vidya mandir”- the list was endless. You haggled with friends (at the cost of upsetting the daily timetable for several days), to get the previous year papers. Sridhar had all the papers, but that slimy chap pretended he had none. Dinesh had a few but was tight-fisted like a miserly grocer- he wanted another paper as a return-favor. Also, how far back in time do you go? You cannot solve papers starting from 1950. The syllabus would have surely changed. Plus, it would take you the next decade to complete them all.

Subra was the first ranker, the previous year. He gave some sage advice, “You cannot solve all papers. Just get your basic concepts right. Your "fundas" must be strong.” With only 19 days to go, you latched onto that timely advice. No more futile solving of papers. However, other doubts racked the mind, “What is this concept? Yeh "concept" kya cheez hai rey? Every concept depended on a previous concept (which you didn’t know), which in turn pointed to a previous concept. You had to start right at the beginning- the basic alphabet-set or the multiplication-table and climb, all the way up, like scaling the Everest.

Prayer was the only resort. “Dear God. Please God. Please save me. Next board exam (by the way, I hope there is none), I promise to study better. If you help me this time, I will shave my head, come walking all the way and I will carry 2 huge bunches of bananas and may be, one big jackfruit (if you save me). Save me, this one last time!”

Did someone write, "Golden days of childhood"? I am coming after them, with an upraised slipper!

 

The "marudhaani" tales!

“Mehndi” has infiltrated as an “unofficial” wedding ceremony across the country, even in urban Tamil Nadu, where it was previously, totally unknown. Perhaps, as a wedding ritual, mehndi was unknown, but mehndi has always been a popular group-event for women in the south.

Back then, vacation-time at Kumbakonam meant a particular day was set aside for painting the hands and feet with mehndi. Applying mehndi, called “marudhaani” in Tamil, was an extended-family event. Grandmother, grand-aunts, mother, aunts, cousins, sister- everyone looked forward to the late evening ritual with overflowing enthusiasm. They just couldn’t wait for dinner to get over, post which, the marudhaani-painting would begin. Boys in the family felt completely abandoned! “You can also apply marudhaani- a nice, round dot on the nose-tip!” sister pulled the leg. “I am not a girl…silly!” you snapped back, even as you imagined the after-effects on the nose-tip.

These days, intricate patterns are drawn on the palm with mehndi. Back then, the design was simple. With marudhaani paste, in a dark-umber color, a big circle was applied on the palm. It looked like the sun covered during a solar eclipse. Like little planets in the same orbit, dots were drawn, around the sun. That completed the palm painting. Both the palms were colored this way.

Next, the fingertips- all 10 of them, were capped with a blob of marudhaani, like a roll of bandage. Now, the feet had to be taken care. Marudhaani was applied in the shape of a footwear- as though a thin strap went around- starting from the little-toe, across the heel, to the toe-thumb. Soon, the toes were painted. Finally, just like a slipper, a buckle was painted across the foot, to hold the marudhaani-sandals in place.

Once the painting was complete, the person had to stay-put, for the entire night. In the morning, the marudhaani was washed off, and the hands and feet shone; stained by the marudhaani dye.

The theory was simple. Execution was complicated. Restroom visits were off for the rest of the night. Once the marudhaani was applied, the hands and feet were glued, and the person was like a tied hostage. She could do nothing on her own. Invariably, the demands also increased multi-fold. You had to run errands repeatedly and do enormous “shishrusha”, either to fetch water or to ward off pesty houseflies that did their best to irritate the marudhaani applicant. Sister simply lay like a lizard with palms outstretched. She needed help to even scratch her back. “This is too much! Why do you get itchy all the time? I cannot be your backscratcher now. I have better things in life to do!” you protested.

When the whole place is agog with such excitement, it was tempting not to try out marudhaani. “Why don’t you apply on one palm alone, just one big circle. You can wash it off in half hour!” Such offers were enticing. There were many angles to consider. What if the marudhaani does not wear off before school started a few weeks after this vacation? The last thing you wanted, was to be paraded through the class, with your palm scrutinized by a jeering mob of boys!

But you didn’t want to miss this opportunity. The mind vacillated- May be, apply it, wait for exactly 20 minutes, and wash it off? That wouldn’t do too much damage. In addition, your hand was also tied, and you needn’t be someone else’s back-scratcher anymore!

Finally, you succumbed to the temptation and got the palm painted. “Can I wash it off now? Now? Now?” you asked every 2 minutes. “Wait! What is the tearing hurry?” sister responded. Those 20 minutes were the longest 20 minutes.

Sister’s face was beaming as she observed my tiny palm, stained a light orange! “This is so beautiful! You should have kept it for the whole night. Why did you wash it off so soon?” You felt elated and sheepish at the same time- not knowing how to respond to the compliment!

Marudhaani had other issues. The whole house was filled with an aroma- you couldn’t call it exactly fragrant; it was a strange smell. Also, as the hours went by, marudhaani cracked on the fingers and feet, and scattered in tiny bits, littering the whole room. A special straw mat was provided for the marudhaani folk to sleep. They lay like multiple lizards, with paws aloft, stacked side-by-side. But the straw mat increased the itching-quotient and the need for volunteers as backscratchers and nose-scratchers.

In the morning, sister could not wait to wash off her marudhaani. You pretended to stay aloof and uninterested, but couldn’t help noticing how her palm was colored a deep red, like the rising sun. “You don’t need to buy high-heel slippers anymore! Marudhaani slippers are enough!” you joked.

The rest of the morning was entirely devoted to comparing one palm versus another.  Everyone in the extended family, vied with each other, for the ultimate crown- “whose palm was colored the brightest!”