RELAXING at home on a Sunday morning. I felt a strong
smell emanating from the kitchen. I asked my wife: " I say, is some rat
dead; or you have opened an antique pickle jar from the attic - or, are you
trying some new dish?"
The last delivery was a bouncer and she turned in on me
like a wounded tigress. "It is all because of your wonderful prediction - yet
another instance of your misfiring ability."
"Yes, it was a bright sunny morning a few days
before this. I had suggested her that I expected the next few days to be very
hot; she could make the rice paste for Karu Vadaam (a pappad variety-Phul wari
in Hindi), and get the preparation dried up in the sun before the dust-storm
season set in. She promptly prepared the paste the next day. That was all. Since
then there had been nothing but rain, Rain and RAIN. (Remember our Madam Prime
Minister even announced that she was going to get foreign experts' opinion on
the sudden change in the weather pattern? Exactly those very days.) My wife had
fondly been hoping for the sun to show up, but meanwhile the paste was well
past its expiry date and had begun to permeate its pungent smell all over the
house, and perhaps our neighbourhood too.
Okay, I take the blame for this mishap. But what did
she mean by her sweeping remark; "Yet another instance of your misfiring
ability?" It did not take her long to unleash; she has such things at her
finger-tips.
We were once shopping from a South Indian store. The
young Tamil salesgirl quoted the price of an item at Rs 80. I spoke to my wife in
Bengali and in code words (my wife
is well versed in Bengali, and I know a bit of it). We conveyed our offer, but
the girl flatly refused. And we bought the piece without any reduction. As we
were leaving the girl thanked us in chaste Bengali: " I would have agreed
to reduce the price by the age of your elder son as you were suggesting to each other, but in
the end you were also telling that even if the price was not reduced it would
still be a good buy. So I thought I might as well charge you the full
price." Later she confided that she was a child of Tamil-Bengali couple.
Way back in my childhood, I had wanted to participate
in a village drama. The director told me that he would have gladly given me a
role if only my nose were a little less long. I belonged to an affluent family
then, so influence was brought to bear at parental level, and I was included - as
a king. In consideration, my father agreed to provide all the stage lighting
with connection from our house (only a very few houses had electric connections
those days). In my role I was to react sharply to a suggestion of my wicked
lieutenant and say "huuhh" steaming forcefully through my nose. In
the force of the air released, the moustache that was clipped into my nostrils
fell off. The alert light-boy (working in our household) switched off the light
to enable me to pick it up and re-fix it. This done, the light was switched on.
But there was a second uproar of laughter. Yes, in the spadework done all too
soon in darkness, the kingly moustache that was majestically looking upwards,
was bowing most humbly downwards.
This incident relates to a scheme offered by a bank
[Bank of Madura?]. You deposit Rs 500 for ten years and get entitled to
participate in their monthly draw of lots for Rs 1 lakh and downwards. I went
to buy one certificate. Being a believer in numerology and reckoning my place in the queue, I realized that
from the standpoint of numerology the certificate number that I would get might
not bring me luck, but the one next would. So I allowed the man behind me to
buy the certificate telling him that I was still undecided. And, as soon as he
bought it, I got mine too. I checked results later. Yes, I just missed the
first prize by one number. That chap to whom I surrendered my place had bagged
it.
Anyway, as a
never-say-die, I still tell myself, if winter comes, can summer be far behind?
I might strike it rich one day, in another form, if only my misfiring knack
doesn’t deny it.
(Published first in Hindustan Times June 17 1983)
V.V. Sundaram
28 February 2012
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