My Alpha Moment

Recently, I discovered the term ‘beta-male’ from a random sojourn in the bottomless abyss of social media and the melancholic, self-deprecatory mood that I was in only enforced me to look at its description and say — ‘Hey, that’s me.’

Let’s just say that machismo and the uber-level of confidence associated with it are qualities that I just cannot identify myself with. Hence, when I suddenly discovered them in an absurd fashion one day, I couldn’t help but feel bemused and curiously empowered at the same time.

The events of that day ran as follows.

I was going to attend an event in Cuffe Parade, an area of Mumbai that I had never seen before until that day. I took the local train to Churchgate Station and upon discovering that a 2.5 km walk was enough to reach the destination and still be on time, I proceeded to check the area out on foot.

As I was walking, I spied two figures in front of me and as I neared, I could see that it was a guy and a girl talking — him, talking while being astride on a motorcycle and her, on the adjacent pavement. As the distance between me and them reduced further, I could hear snippets of conversation and it was clear that I was a witness to an aggressively developing argument.

Before I knew it, I was just a stone’s throw away and could clearly make out tears on the girl’s face. The war of words escalating before me then, suddenly blew up. The guy got out of the motorcycle on to the pavement and lunged at her. The girl took a few steps back.

Enter *drum-roll* me. Without even thinking, I “ahem-ahem”ed and stood in front of them.

They looked at me with a complex mixture of shock, suspense and awe — as in, the girl’s purple lips were agape in total befuddlement and the guy’s face was locked in a weird transitory phase between anger and disbelief. I, however, raised my voice a little bit more and said those heroic words — ‘kya chal raha hai?’ (What’s going on?)

Now, look, I was trying to be stern on the outside but the seriousness of the moment and the ludicrous position of me in it had somehow combined in my head and was tugging the corner of my mouth to a smile. However, I, like a macho-goddamn-boss, controlled it, looked at the girl and said more heroic words — ‘Is there a problem?’

The guy swung into a slightly-colder-but-still-aggressive tone and said, “It’s no problem. You go.’’

Let me just detail the specifics of the scene here.

First, the physicality. I was and still am a pudgy, bespectacled, your-friendly-neighbourhood binge-watching nerd-necked couch-potato. He was every gym-going Punjabi-Jatt-Delhi-whichever-region-these-specimens-come-from stereotype come to life. His tight-cliché-of-a-T-shirt was clearly losing a latitudinal wrestling match against his pectoral muscles.

Second, the location. I was on the road. He was on a raised pavement. He was on higher ground here. The David v/s Goliath trick of picking up a stone and throwing it will not work either. My bowling career from my gully-cricketing days in the streets of Bangalore boasts of more wides than wickets, so I cannot say much of my aim.

Basically if this stand-off turned into a fist-fight, neither do I have the physical advantage nor the tactical one.

I still stood and stared at him with every ounce of intensity I could muster. The situation seemed to cool down a bit. It could be because the girl had come in between us-alpha and beta, and was imploring me to go and leave them be.

I acquiesced and walked away.

Ordinary people would continue to walk away but machismo had not left me yet. I walked two steps. Stopped. Turned and looked again. I gave them the good old warning glance. Then, I walked away for good.

I felt like the hero of a movie walking slowly away from an explosion. I was Sunny Deol ready to use my hands to tear a hand-pump apart.

I do really hope I judged the situation right when I walked away — it did look like it had diffused. There was honestly nothing else I could do, but it felt so darn good.

I guess there is a little bit of an alpha in me.

A tiny moment where I actually told myself that I am awesome.

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