When my Mallu lungi deceived young men
Apparel oft proclaims the man, said Shakespeare. In my case, it did, at least once. ( Or, on second thoughts, did it? I am not quite sure.) Giving me the once-over from top to toe, people have mentally pigeonholed me under categories as diverse as plumber, dental technician, newspaper boy, motor mechanic, palmist, fishmonger, mason, carpenter, hired assassin and terrorist. Certain trademarks give away the possessors: the one spotted even in a funeral crowd with three ball pens clipped to his shirt pocket can safely be marked off as a quill-driver in a government office. Those with a Sherlock Holmesian streak can call it correctly at a glance.
But it is a rare gift. This happened some thirty years ago. I was on inspection duty at a semi-urban centre in North Kerala. Included in its landmarks and places of interest were two places (I have read somewhere of a place with just two hotels, both lousy, so that to whichever you went, you wished you had gone to the other)— one tourist lodge (only accommodation, not even bed tea, but a plentiful supply of bedbugs and mosquitoes to compensate) and one temporary movie theatre.
On the day of my visit, by about 8.30 at night, I, clad in the typical Malayali uniform of lungi and cheap cotton shirt, reached the hotel serving items whose consumption would not merit classification. As I was about to leave the place all in one piece, two ‘dressy’ fashion icons with cigarettes hanging from one side of the mouth and a supercilious glare, evidently planning to go for a movie after dinner, shouted at me, “Hey, look here. What do you have?” I hasten to clarify that, to use Wodehousean diction, mine is a perfectly “ordinary, meaningless face” incapable of launching even one ship. In all humility, I replied, “Chappathi, paratha, dosa and poori for sure.
But you can get more details from that man at the cash counter.” Without further explanations, I moved away. As I walked next day into the bank branch which I was to inspect, my attention turned to two young boys occupying adjacent clerical desks—the same guys who stamped me, for valid reasons, a hotel waiter the previous night.
The branch manager took me around and introduced me to all his staff, asking them to extend me their utmost cooperation. When the turn of the two boys came, I merely said, “We have already met.” Luckily, there were no questions. The only emotion discernible on the faces of the two employees was an urge to be elsewhere!