Lady with chequered shoes

"Are you sure? I just can't believe that they are prostitutes" a wave of ecstasy has started ebbing in my stomach. I was wishing the words of roommate to be true as the green devil in me has started arraying fantasies in my utopian world of imagination.

My friend, as he was slipping into casual dress, looked at me briefly and asked, "Why that glitter in your eyes on hearing this, Mohammed?"

"Oh nothing! I would assimilate this too as an inevitable element of Metropolitan life". Those words of me were rushing to prevent my friend from suspecting me that one day I would be seen knocking at the door of our neighbours, a bunch of Russian prostitutes. They have recently moved into flat 402.

Life was not so interesting on the floor of our Black Tulip Apartment, as I have expected earlier, save the moments of occasional share-smiles with those Russian ladies in the elevators. Most of the times, I was too tempted to talk with them more than the greeting words. My complex mind, which was seasoned in my country life, had always been a hindrance in such occasions. My eyes were always lowered in the presence of those ladies. I started remembering the colors of their shoe pairs and at one instance, I could recognize the ladies by their shoes. Amidst of all the pairs, my eyes got glued to a pair of shoes with chequered design. I used to laugh to myself over the absurdity of the shoe designer for chosing such a design for ladies footwear. He should have had a domestic feud with his wife or should have blasted by his boss on the day of designing such a lifeless pair of shoes. The owner of these shoes was a thin lady who was always looking impeccable dresses.

"The thin lady? She's Alina", my roomie, Wassim was sounding irritated over my recent curiosity over the neighbours.

"How did you collect their names?"

"I just asked them. You don't want to roll cart wheels to know anybody's name in this city. Go to bed. I've got a project visit tomorrow"

The next day evening, I met Alina in the elevator. That was the usual time, she used to go for her 'duty'.

"Alina?" I cracked the ice atlast.

"Me Elina. No Alina", her bad English eccentrically encouraged me from that day on. I used to have monosyllabic dialogues with her during our confined spaces within the walls of elevator. The second reason for such short dialogues, other than her bad English, was the time constraint, we had. The 20 seconds travel time, were just enough to share only brief dialogues. I started developing a good acquaintance with Elina.

It was a Saturday morning. Like anyother first day of the week, I started to my office with malice. As the doors of elevator opened, Elina emerged. She was in a very bad shape. Her eyes were swollen out of crying, her facet was reddish than usual. She was uncontrallably sobbing. As she saw me, she started howling and her words were broken. I could not understand anything as she was speaking to me in Russian. All I could understand was she she had a bad 'client'. As she walked past me, I did not fail to notice her ugly gait. She was unable to walk properly. As the doors of elevator were closing in front me, I spotted blood spots on her white skirt.

I did not see her for few days. I started worrying about her and dared not to enter her room or ask her friends about her.

After a month, while I was returning from work, I saw a tiny figure on haunches near the garbage container at our building parking. As I neared, I understood that it was Elina. She was inspecting the garbage container as her long fingers were clenching a small soft doll.

"Elina! How are you?" I could not resist my anxiety.

"Mohammed! see. This for my daugher Ursula" she was exhibiting the small doll in the twilight. My eyes were instantly clouded to witness her motherly love. Also, I was exposed to such a strange form of motherly love in the heart of a demeaned lady. In silence, I raised my thumb and uttered an another monosyllable to Elina, "Great".

My mind has already discarded the slightest lust that I had possessed over Elina. From that day on, I envisaged a small girl lurking in the shadows of Elina. There were a tiny pair of chequered shoes on the feet of Ursula.

You ain't whom you are

When was the last time that you have had this experience of someone looking at you in a Town Bus or in a Shopping outlet and jumping out of their shoes to shout, "Hello! Mr. Wrong Name, don't you recognize me?" I am sure that you would be perplexed and would start doubting your memory power. There would be occassional instances when by you would start worrying about your vulnerabilities towards Korsakoff's syndrome or any other memory-related problems that a Hollywood movie hero would undergo after the Iraqi war. The blame would be weighed on your surplus dead brain cells or your aversions for greens as ingredient in daily lunch. While you are evaluating all your unfavorable stars, Mr. Stranger would be grinning at you with out caring about his stained front teeth.

I have had many such mistaken-identities (or at least that is what I believe). I would share one of the whole bizarre experiences.

"You-ain't-Mohammed" moments:

I was travelling from Nagercoil to Vallioor (Tamilnadu, India) with my friend Feroz Meeran back during one of my school days. A rotund man boarded the bus in one of the intermittent stops and upon his entry his drifting eyes rested on us. There was no second elapsed before I watched him sitting besides me.

"Enna Sundar! Thoorama?" (Sundar! Where are you travelling to?)

"Err.. I'm Mohammed. Do I know you Sir? I think you are mistaking me for someone else" - I was sheepishly recalling whether he is the man to whom I have lent my pen on the other day in the bank.

The man would now chuck out a divine smile on his dark facet. And with a breath of exhaustion would tell "You possess the same wit as your brother"

Those words made me desperate further as I was already rummaging around for my missing identity. Who would be my brother in the world of this stranger?

I briefly looked at Feroz who was looking bewildered to see me as Sundar. I lifted his finger and placed on his scalp to scratch like me for answers and he complied. The following hour, I would be knocked down with numerous inappropriate questions like the TV anchor asking in all reality shows as below,

"Did your father manage to sell that red banana bunch in Nagercoil market?"

"What did the Vet doctor told about the diseased calf?"

"Inform your brother that Velu Nadar is renting out his Mahindra Tractors"

And yadayadayada...

Little did he wait for any of my answers? But all the time he was talking, I have noticed his hand resting on my thighs. For God's sake, the bus has reached Vallioor where we were supposed to get down. The stranger did not retire with his questions and asked me in hurry.

"Enna thambi! Inga erangudheenga?" (Why are you getting down here?)

"Mmm...mattuku punnaku vanga poranungo" (I'm going to buy oil cake for the cows).

Size matters....

I still remember, when I was a little boy, I was so skinny that my mother was so worried of me. Eventhough she bred me well with all high calorific foods (she was a complan mom), I disappointed her by displaying my sunken collar bones. My sister started her arithmetic by counting my ribs. In school morning prayers, the head mistress always scold the boy standing at my rear to move forward and not to leave a gap between him and the boy standing in front of me. It was a normal ritual that the "rear-boy" would catch my skinny arms and quickly flaunt my presence to the head mistress. My English teacher would always rephrase the idiom "as-thin-as-rake" to "as-thin-as-mohammed". To sum up the total dismays, the birds would sit on my head mistaking for electric poles (one bird to another : watch out!! this pole is shorter than all those electric poles that we have seen in Arcot road) whenever I was waiting for my school buses.

When I was venturing into my teen age, I got fascinated by everything that is slender and slim under the sun; either it was that slim Zoology teacher, Mrs. Meera or that thin red book of Ruskin Bond's collection of short stories. The dosas cooked by my mother were demanded on lean girths. I searched whole of our school library for the thin volume of Iliad. In restaurants I deliberately roll the fork around a long string of noodle and throw a scorny peek onto the chubby men devouring the big cheese burgers.

It was an assertion that my tiny brain has made that I warrant only the slimmy things. This saga of "thinaholic" pursued till my marriage. Still there is a joke going around in my family about the moment I have dropped the "poochendu" - an ornamented bunch of flowers during my marriage. My wife raised her face for the first time to take a quick glance on her "pehelwan" who is supposed to protect her all through her life. I just beamed at her and told that the guy seated on my back nudged me to drop it. This joke is taught to all the new brides of our family along with their rites and daily duties as a married woman. On our honeymoon trip to Kodaikanal, I attempted to look at the pillar rocks through the telescope. When I heard the chuckles of my wife, I turned around with a look "what's so funny?". She told me that I matched the perfect stand to the telescope (co-incidentally I was in black shirt matching telescope color).

Gone all those days now!

During my last trip to Madurai Meenakshi Hospital in Madurai, when I was running on the treadmill for echo test, a hospital attendant has remarked,

"Why you have to eat this much and why you have to run like a thief running for life". Yes, now I am over-weight.

Now my biggest worry is that my daughter Sherin, after few years, while flipping through our marriage photo album should not question my wife;

"Shameless!! you have married some other guy and now living with dad??"

What I have learnt now is that I cannot shut the people's mouth with my body stature, either slim or fat.