No one would entertain an ugly stain on a clean, crisp dress worn after taking finicky care in washing and ironing. Nevertheless, the stains are welcomed by detergent manufacturers. Their ads would feature a smart housewife dismissing a stain on the dress of a boisterous son as she would know boys will be boys who would love to soil their dresses by playing in puddles or with poodles. The reason for her indulgent, 100-watt smile would be she has in her possession a detergent with the new formula xk2ybz capable of making the stains vanish as if waved away with a magic wand.
Such ads do not spare grown-ups as well as many clumsy gentleman would not permit a spoonful of kurma or pilav with an anointment of oily gravy reach his mouth without any conveyance loss en route. The resultant stain, right under the second button, would look like the angry eye of a person suffering from Madras Eye or Joi Bangla—the aliases of conjunctivitis.
While a detergent model in such a situation would smile with a tolerant shake of her pert head, the man’s wife would look at him like Medusa the Gorgon. Such an angry stare would turn him into a stone if only he had dared to catch her smouldering eyes.
Coffee stains are as much part of life as the very brew itself since many coffee votaries down South do drink it from a stainless steel tumbler or dabra with rims. Cups and saucers are taboo earmarked only for tea. It is customary to drink coffee with the rim hoisted a few centimetres over the lips to avoid contact from the viewpoint of hygiene. But one who indulges in such conventional drinking may have to pay a price as at times the liquid will miss the mark and a couple of big drops would splash on his dress. Though the coffee drinker could gauge the quality of the drink instantaneously from the very first modicum, the darkness of the brownish strain on his dress would provide visible evidential support. A coffee stain that would vanish with a mere swipe using a few drops of water would be a slur on the hospitality of the hostess who had served that brew concocted with weak decoction. An authentic Kumbakonam “degree” coffee stain would adamantly stay put.
Migrating to a medley of stains, some men would take food with such uncivil clumsiness that their after-dinner dress would look like the canvas of Pablo Picasso. Sherlock Holmes, if given his shirt, could reel off the menu of the dinner the man had partaken—right up to the dessert—without the aid of a magnifying glass.
A stain of a different variety is the indelible ink a voter has on his “democratic left index finger”. This quinquennial ornamentation will be there to forewarn him that, though called indelible, the black stain on the finger would vanish in a couple of months or so. Yet, if he had not exercised his franchise with caution, the “mistake” he voted for would be there as an indelible political stain for the next five years.