Sweet blunders of my youthful days

Some have wanderlust, with wheels under their feet or wings on their backs. Varyingly,  some have blunder lust, ones who specialise in making blunders, though without conscious volition.

Some have wanderlust, with wheels under their feet or wings on their backs. Varyingly,  some have blunder lust, ones who specialise in making blunders, though without conscious volition. I need not go far and wide to search for shining examples. Here I am, near at hand, yours blunderingly.
Instances are aplenty, yet a few can be showcased. As a college freshman in the early sixties, I was told by a senior to meet Mr Johnson of the English department. The one seated near the entrance of the staff room, convulsed with silent laughter, pointed to a grumpy giant buried in a lexicon. I walked towards him. “Excuse me, Mr Johnson, sir!” I began brightly. “What?” he growled like a lion. He pounced on me, using the choicest vituperative words at his command. Little did I know his nickname among students was ‘Johnson’ and a reference to it touched a sensitive nerve. 

Later, when two gentlemen came home to take forward the matrimonial proposal for my brother, I interrupted their praise of the girl-to-be-married to ask, tactlessly,  who  between the two was the father. Little did I realise, the smarter-looking man was the father. The elderly- looking one was in fact the 
girl’s brother. The alliance did not click.

But the creme de la creme of the blunders I made was while alighting from the  Howrah Mail  early one morning. During that trip, the passenger who shared my first class coupe was a portly member of the clergy. Out of consideration for the holy fellow traveller, I had hidden the book I was planning to read under my air pillow. We had a hearty chat. He enquiring about my family and I about his flock, and also about the difference between an orphrey and chasuble. Soon, we retired for the night, the priest befitting his position of eminence occupied the upper berth.

Soon came the dawn. The Howrah-Madras Mail reached Chennai Central in the wee hours. I woke up as the train pulled into the platform. The holy father was fast asleep. I gently woke him up. Hurriedly, we threw our belongings into our bags and detrained.
Later, upon reaching home, I opened my bag. I had the shock of my life.  I found the paperback titled,  The Playboy Adviser, lent by a friend, missing. Instead, there was a well-thumbed  volume of the holy biblical text.

J S Raghavan

Email: jsraghavan@yahoo.com

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