Yem and Eee decided to surprise me by bringing over someone I went to school with a few years ago. They had met by chance in the Chicago temple and when she mentioned Alpha and Pi, the guy jumped up and said, ‘I know her very well. I even took a huge packet to India for her when we were in Gainesville.’
So the moment arrived. My friends waited bated breath for my eyes to light up at the sight of my old friend whom I had lost touch with. Everyone looked at me with an expectant cheezy smile, that I was finding hard to place.
He walked in. I shook his hands formally and said, ‘Hi, welcome home. Come in. I'm Alpha. What was your name again?’
Yes folks, I had a complete blackout! Power failure in the upper continent. Exactly the moment you have no contingency plan for. No escape route and a pile of embarrassment to bury yourself under. I had zilch recollection of his existence in my life. Nope, not even when he spelled out his name and said he was from University of Florida and he was the roommate of my very good friend. We allegedly met many times, once during a movie. He rattled out many common friends whom I recognized immediately. He wasn’t an imposter for sure. It also wasn't in my best interests to go around forgetting handsome guys like this.
‘He even carried your stuff to India,’ added a very helpful Yem looking completely disgusted with me now. All her plans for a grand reunion just crumbled. ‘I thought you had great memory with respect to people. You even remember the name of some obscure car mechanic whom you met just once.’
Grrr… Any need to bring that up now?
I tried feigning sudden knowledge, ‘Ah yes, I remember now. No wonder your face looked so familiar.’
Only to be booo-ed by everyone around. Such camaraderie and support shown to the hapless was to be appreciated.
‘Ask your parents, they might remember me. After all they came home and had coffee and took the stuff,’ poor harassed guy added trying to salvage the situation.
When I called my parents later, they had no clue what I was talking about. ‘What stuff you sent us?’
Ingrates!
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55 comments:
first comment.
immensely proud of you.
When I called my parents later, they had no clue what I was talking about. ‘What stuff you sent us?’
You must have talked in Tamizh and poor parents had no idea what you were saying ... he he
Anon2: He he he :)
Alpha: Nanna vangi kattikko indha madhiri.. :p
Anyways, me thinks that the guy must have tried to pataofy you with that offer of taking a parcel to India and you conveniently forgot him afterward ;)
anon2:please be naming yourselves in future. very difficult it is becoming with so many people who have no idea who they are.
anti: pataofy eh? Aiyoo, the poor guy knew of Pi's role in my life..so it was a selfless act of taking the parcel. My soul will go to the gutter only.
Aaah.. okie.. this was after you and Pi became a thing, huh.. and he still wanted to pataofy you? Must have been one of those playahs that I keep hearing about. Good for you that you had by then become the bharathiya naari that you are now.
ada pavi,u are trying hard to maativitufy me. I intend to renew the friendship and atone for my sins..and here you are talking of love-interest.
..Aiyoo, the poor guy knew of Pi's role in my life..
The important question is did Pi know of Pi's role in your life when said dude offered to take said parcel!!
vc, i know you be the king of profundity..but I am not getting.. What has Pi to do with this at all? No, the parcel taking offer didn't directly come from him (it seems). His service was offered by my (also his) friend. And the plot thickens.
I over-explain myself unwarrantedly.
it could be some practical joke .. i was part of such a pj once. so think again :P
Hey! Cool, cool! The thing about profundity is that it is not to be taken seriously. You'll get headaches!
BTW, what this chi-ku-ba?
chava, You were subjected to this kind of PJ??? wow, very creative friends you have!
As much as i wud love for it to be a joke(only this time), I have done queries and figured a guy like that did hang out in Gainesville.
vc: i cud do with less headaches..chikuba is the kiruba's twin.
maativitufy ?
anon: leaving the cow.
vc: I did not quite get the chi-ku-ba part!
Alpha: "leaving the cow" it seems :))
anti: ask alpha. it is a spillover from the comments section of Gabby's latest post.
yoohoo alpha,
tch tch c'mon, how can u forget a guy who carried stuff for you, if not ur affection atleast he deserves recognition...heehee maybe now ur friends will check with you before bring "friends" home the next time.
-fishy
It is very simple. Memory-loss runs in the family obviously @"what stuff you sent us".
Ah yes, the memory loss. Me and Harry Potter can vouch for that.
(P.s. Is the trench deep enough for you now, ma'am?)
HaHa there goes one used and abused guy :)) Poor thing.
Join the club! Only a million times! :)
fishy: I have told her to check with me in future so that I have an approp act ready.
rhyncus: I know. I'll blame it on the genes.
Lee: In this case, no trench is deep enough unless it reaches Dubai from underneath (the trench) so that I can hand deliver the book.
angel: use and abuse...tcha! sounds sad.
boo: i trust you, hence not dropping by your place anytime soon.
amethyst: lol, same guy?!! I feel much better now.
I have to embarass you a little more here. After reading your e-mail and this post, yes, I remember the guy. His name is a little unusual... so I remember it. I was with you when you went to deliver this home bound "package" in Dec 2000 (Had to do some arithmetic to recall that time frame).
Yikes!!! To think I was convincing myself that the package must have been a figment of his imagination. Imagine my parents forgot him! How insane! But to give my parent's some credit, they remembered you for some reason. don't tell me you took packages for me too.
LOL looks like everyone in your family has short memory :)
Alpha! If you remember, I delivered a package from your parents to you. Your dad will never forget me. I opened the door in my Mallu land "Lungi" costume. I had to open my mouth and speak English before he would give me the package.
thought i would be the first to post you on del.icio.us..........but no- someone beat me to it- by 4 days. oh well.....i guess your popularity cant be reigned.
bloghopper: It is interesting to note that you wouldn't divulge your name when cracking a joke, but then you sure do want to be known as the guy who loves his desi undies. Men, I can't understand them (hopefully you aren't a female wearing Frenchies) Beware, if you live in America, they are called Freedoms (after the French name boycott).
m, what is this delicious spelt vaguely? I guess I am not into popular things.
check it out........just type in del.ici.ous as a website and voila.
sorry- del.icio.us
I can understand parent forgetting getting stuff.
You forgetting what you have given ?
Wow. Could I borrow some money off you ?
i did that to a "rejected" suitor once. i ran into him at my new workplace where he had come for some client meeting. he smiled and "long-time-how've-you-been'ed me," i smiled back and politely said, "fine, but do i know you?" aiyo pavam...considering that we had discussed Life-With-Capital-L once while drinking nariyal pani on juhu beach, second time eating sizzlers at yoko...poor chap did not deserve that kind of KLPD to his ego.
I feel he was just a fraud. Are you sure he didn't steal anything from your place? You and your parents couldn't have got amnesia at the same time!
m: and voila what? I still didn't get it. I think I might be daft.
anti: aiyoo, now we are getting too personal with brand names for your jettis. You could have mentioned size also for my curious readers.
?!: You can once you return the 1000 bucks your took from me to treat your personality disorder. Hard to forget you.
journeylist: maybe the sizzlers were more sizzling at that time. I don't blame you.
hardu: Check fillu's comment above. I think he might have exsisted.
patty, Now that is concerning. They probably are hinting at something.
del.icio.is is a social bookmarking site. They use tags(just like flickr). They are supposed to be a web 2.0 site.
blah..blah..u do not want to know.
Chakri, thanks man..you are my official web guru. but you know what, it still doesn't make much sense to the context. So did m try to bookmark me? I guess that's what it is.
Ha ha ha.... so what became of that guy? Situation was salvaged gracefully?
chitra, he got mercilessly teased by his wife. never again will he think of meeting up with old friends.
hiren, This was more like..ajnabi, tum anjaane hi lagte ho. Anyways, welcome.
(A) Write . Check.
(B) Get forgin agent. (Alpha has kindly volunteered). Check.
(C) Prepare acceptance speeches for Bookers and Pulitzers. Will do.
And Alpha, pliss not to give out such invites @scandalous. Restraint , admirable, being shown already. Difficult to keep up in face of such temptation.
hehehe..happens with me all the time :)
Aw.. the easiest is to say, "I remember your face but don't remember your name" .. less hurting :)
and with the names you keep changing, I may soon forget ur name too!
err.. I may soon forget your name-2. :p
?!, better prepare the speech quickly..we have no time to waste. Agent insticts going up..
and yes, it will do the tabloids good if you performed at least one act of scandal. don't hinder the flow.
TF: arey yaar, I was alpha and will be alpha for janam janam...putting a 2 behind my name just doubled me as alpha.
phatichar: I am not alone in this bad world. thank god.
hmmm.. scandal.. hmm...
Sorta hinder scandalous image for wannabe writer if agent goes around with loose talk about jetty sizes. ( Cargo ? QE II ? err Tramp ? )
BTW, have generally avoided such embarassment by confidently asking " So what happened to that qtpie you used to hang around with ALL the time ?" Rather than explain to eyebrows raised spouse, 2-3 people have gladly confessed, yes all confusion, we have never met before and how nice to meet you now.
Alpha: See, I told you.... You just have selective amnesia. Paavam that guy
Yo anti! யார பாத்து பாவமங்கிரே?.
Yenna, namma பெர்லாம் அடி வாங்குது?
Alpha: me was rolling on floor lmao at your parent's reaction. priceless!
Namakku normally writing in Tamil kashtam. Eppidithaan evalellaam qwerty keyboardle ezhuthuraanglo.
Anti : Jetty size nu kettanga ille, athanaal thaan offered some standard sizes.
Alpha : Aama, intha nakkal thaan venaamengarathu @ self sufficiency in comments. It isnt as if the lady was flooding anyways :( .
Cheap way of getting traffic: commenting and putting links.
Classy way : convincing agent to do same.
Sigh, when she gets time off the jetties.
:)
Alpha, nenu manavaade. Was just hoping to cover all the markets@ shaayari (where you see that ?) and Tam.
Pliss to accept agentship.
Though, sigh, we wonder.
You seem to be more inclined to hardcore than hardback, bareback than paperback and surreal rather than serial rights.
And aNTi, we blame you for glit lit career ground to halt.
A plague on their jetties!
:))
Hi...alpha....after reading some of your post I am in love with you!!!
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