Surya felt like Christopher Columbus. He had made the discovery.
“See the girl sitting there. She is the perfect example of my theory”.
“The one who is wearing jeans and the white shirt”, said Surya
The place where we were all standing was like a courtyard between two office buildings. Our building faced the road and this place was behind it. An enterprising person had setup a small utility shop, popularly known as petti kadai, here. The guys sold lot of stuff like coffee, tea, cigarettes, biscuits, paan, pen etc. We came here after lunch for Surya to pick up a cigarette and were lazing in the shade when Surya saw this girl and was electrified. The girl had been sitting on one of the three stone benches that were laid out there.
“ Oh !! That girl eh?” said Mahesh staring at the girl. “I have seen her here two three times”. He continued staring.
“Don’t stare Mahesh. Don’t stare” said an irritated Surya.
“Whom are we not supposed to stare at?” asked Kumar, who had the knack of joining in late and not having any clue of the context.
“The girl sitting there”, said Mahesh, now pointing at her with his hand.
A gesture that agitated Surya further. “Don’t point your hand!! Don’t point your hand man. She will think we are all very cheap guys.”
“Why should we care what she think of us” Mahesh retorted.
Just then the girl got up and walked into the opposite building. “She must have been pissed with our behavior”, said Surya. “I am sure she went away because of us”. Disgust was writ large on his face.
“I think she went because she is paid to work and can’t be sitting here all day for you to admire her”, said Mahesh, which irritated Surya even more.
The argument was cut short with the arrival of Mayilvannan, our Branch Manager, who called us all in for a meeting.
That evening Surya continued on the topic of our morning discussion, which was about different types of girls and the ones we liked best. Surya wanted, “A girls who has both western sensibilities and an Indianess which is endearing. She should be broad minded but in her heart she must be an Indian. Dressing in western style is fine and being friendly with people is good but she should know her limits. I don’t want someone who is too Indian or someone who is too westernized”. We were not sure if he will be lucky in his search.
Now he was ecstatic.” The girl we saw this morning is a living example of what I wanted. You guys thought that such a combination was not possible but just look at what we saw. The girl is not too dark and not too fair. The western dress suits her well and at the same time the pleated hair and the bindi give her that Indian look. Excellent combination. Excellent combination”. Surya was shaking his head and murmuring ‘tsk tsk’. He was obviously seeing her in his minds eye.
“Maybe she is too modern Surya. She was wearing clothes which are very modern”, said Mahesh, for whom anything other than a sari and chudidar was ‘modern’.
“Come on yaar”, said Surya. “We are about to enter 1990s soon and in 10 years time we will be in the 21st century. You Madras guys must come and work in Hyderabad so that you become broad minded”.
“Will you go and talk to her tomorrow”, asked Ganapathy in wonder. For him anything to do with girls was a wonder. “Will you ask her to marry you?”
I laughed out loud. “There is a saying in Telugu. There is no proposal for a marriage, there is no pregnancy but the kid is named as Somalingam.”
“Oh, Surya is going to name his kid Somalingam?” asked Kumar, who came in late as usual. “Is that the name of your kula deivam, family diety?”
“No da. What these guys were saying is …………. Aaargh forget it.” Surya gave up when we all laughed again.
“Anyway I will talk to her before I get back to Hyderabad”, promised Surya. Which left us with four days to achieve this feat.
The next two days were spent at customer site giving us no chance of sighting the girl of Surya’s dreams.
The third day turned out to be lucky. We finished a call and got back to office at lunch time. After lunch we saw her as we were approaching the utility shop. She had just put something she had purchased from the shop into her handbag, closed it and walked past us. The shopkeeper, whose back was facing us till then, turned around with a five rupee note in his hand. Surya immediately understood that the girl had walked away without picking up her change. Before the shopkeeper could call out, Surya called her. “Excuse me”. He called out a bit loudly when she didn’t turn around. “Excuse me please”. The girl turned around with a puzzled expression. “Your change. You have forgotten your change.” She came to the shop, picked up the five rupee note, which the shopkeeper had kept on the lid of a biscuit jar. While moving away, she looked at Surya with a faint trace of a smile at the corner of her lips and almost inaudibly said “Thanks.”
The evening beer was on Surya.
“What a smile man, what a smile. I went fida. Her face turns so beautiful when she smiles. And the way she said “thanks”. Aah. That is what I mean by western sensibility mixed with Indianness. She was shy and at the same time knew that she had to thank me. What a voice she had”. Surya just couldn’t stop.
“You mean you heard her voice?” asked I. “I thought she was gasping for breath”.
“You always exaggerate. She spoke softly but that is how you must speak to strangers. Aah. What a girl. What a girl. I wish she was besides me now”, said Surya.
“You mean drinking beer with you?!!” asked Ganapathy in wonder.
“No man. With me here does not literally mean at this bar. It means that we are both alone somewhere”, explained Surya.
“How can you be alone when there are two of you”, I asked, which Surya ignored.
“You will not allow her to drink beer? You wanted a westernized girl, didn’t you?” asked Mahesh.
“No Mahesh. I wanted a girl who is western but tempered with Indianness”, said Surya.
“What he means is that she should allow him to drink beer. That is western. She should not drink beer. That is Indian”, I explained. “Maybe you can let her drink wine”, I suggested, just to irritate Surya further.
I succeeded. Surya was irritated and said, “No beer, no whisky, no wine, no brandy”.
Kumar, who joined us just then said, “They serve wine and brandy here. That is not a problem”, which lead all of laughing again and Surya getting more agitated.
“Boss, you please understand the context and then talk. What they were saying is ….. aargh. Forget it.” Then turning to us he said, “Tomorrow is the day”.
Tomorrow came. It was slow day with no calls to make and our train back to Hyderabad was late in the evening. Upon Surya’s insistence, I joined him to keep vigil in the courtyard. Though we were in the shade, the Madras weather ensured that we were sweating and were totally uncomfortable. This didn’t bother Surya. All his senses were on high alert, waiting for the girl to appear.
She came just when I started cursing her in my mind after two hours of vigil had elapsed. I was hungry and was hoping that she would leave soon. She came and sat on the stone bench. Surya couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“I am not staring”, retorted Surya. “I am watching her without her knowing it”.
“So you think. You are directly staring at her. Your thick lens will not hide that fact”
“You always exaggerate”, he said and continued staring at her.
The girl kept her handbag besides her on her right side. Then turning the upper part of her body by ninety degrees to her right, she took out some object from her handbag and her body covered whatever activity she was doing.
“Maybe she is eating some chocolate which she doesn’t want us to see”, said Surya. “I will buy you as many chocolates that you want my dear”, he said longingly.
When she turned her upper body to the normal position, we realized that she had been protecting the fire with her body. She casually took out the cigarette from between her lips and exhaled.
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