Date: 15th June, 08
For the past 4 months now, I have been frequenting the gym every weekend, with my good friend, Anu.
Now if you had ever seen me, you would have almost choked to death in shock or a fit of laughter, depending on how you’d take the aforementioned piece of information. I belong to the tribe of size-zero things, who never seem to gain an ounce of weight, no matter how many ice-creams or black forest pastries you catch us hogging. If I were any thinner, I might as well become invisible to the naked eye.
So it is of endless amazement to people that I could go to the gym and still not evaporate into thin air. For the benefit of those of you who are beginning to think that you knew me, but not well enough to know that I am the gymming sort, let me assure you, I visit the gym not to bend iron, but to attend the salsa classes held their.
Today would have been no different from the rest of the Sundays, had I not felt this gnawing hunger. As I hadn’t eaten a morsel of food for the past 4 hrs, we stopped at a crowded place in Jayanagar - Cool Joint ( that place still offers grub that is good value for money inspite of the soaring inflation levels) and quickly grabbed a paneer sandwich. Just as Anu was getting her bike out of the parking lot, a Maruti car stops right in front of us, effectively locking us in the parking lot and the dunce driving it, steps out and disappears God knows where! Exasperated as I was, I lost my cool. If it was me in Anu’s place, I might as well have banged right into the damn car to get out of there. Just then, the dunce returns and starts moving his car. I began berating him for having the nerve to park his car, bang in the middle of the road, at a crowded place like that on a Sunday afternoon. The cheek that this nut had, he retorted that he had done us a favour by not delaying us further! Just at that very moment, when my temper was threatening to make me look like a beetroot (albeit a thin one, mind you!), the Gods decided that they would give me some fun and excitement for the day, and sent me their winged messenger- a crow - who promptly embellished my black track pants ( not just any track pants, I got them recently from Weekender, and they cost me a bomb!), with what else, - crow shit.
This was the 2nd time in 25 yrs of my existence that I was being blessed with this incredibly loathsome organic matter from the heavens (I ‘ll spare you the details of the first experience for now).
I managed to wipe off most of the substance or whatever you’d want to call it ( as I’m trying to make this is family-oriented blog, let’s stick to calling it “the substance”), spread and got rubbed in. Needless to say, it looked ghastly against the black background.
All I had was around 20 mins before my scheduled time at the gym and I had no time to go back home and change. Most importantly, (and as the title suggests, the # 1 reason why you are reading this extract of my ramblings) the gym doesn’t have a restroom!!
Have no doubts, this is not one of those seedy, smelly, ill-ventilated gyms that have sprouted by the dozen in every nook and cranny of Bangalore. This is one of the reputed ones which attracts sophisticated, classy people, like yours faithfully, from as far as 12-15 kms. Good dance floor, passable acoustics, fine ambience, beautiful crowd and great views (was referring to the views from the windows, for the benefit of those with an over-active imagination) , but NO RESTROOMS! Small price to pay, some would say, especially if the trainer, or the dance instructor, in my case, is a hot bod!
So there I was, wondering where I could wash this substance off me. The thought that immediately came to mind was that I could perhaps wash it off at the small eatery opposite to the gym but I was doubtful if the stall-owner would welcome someone using a good amount of his stock of drinking water to wash something off the trousers.
Then I remembered this very reputed, 3-4 star restaurant, just next to the eatery. A naughty idea was beginning to take shape. I got Anu to stop at this restaurant, inspite of her efforts to make me drop the plan (one of her arguments being that there was no plan). She kept saying she didn’t have the confidence to do it. I just told her to stick to me and to let me do all the talking.
So we let the valets direct us to the 2-wheeler parking lot and trotted up the steps confidently (or at least pretended to), to a “Good afternoon, Madam” from the “Air-India -Maharajah” styled guard. The moment we entered, a packed dining hall greeted us, with several maitre-des rushing around taking orders. One of them approached me immediately and I asked for a table for 2. For the first time that day, I heard sweet words when the maitre-de said that we would have to wait for at least 30 mins. Great!, half an hour would be more than enough time for me! We walked across the dining hall to a small passageway that sort of doubled as a waiting lounge. There was a family of 4 already waiting there. I left Anu there and without a word, rushed to the tiny, one-person-only washroom. I had not even managed to clean up half the mess when a lady almost barged in. In the confusion, I promptly dropped a whole load of water on my pants (sorry, pun unintended!). I desperately began to dry my pants when I heard another bang on the door. Realising that I must be holding up someone in urgent need of the rest-room, I quickly wiped off as much of the mess I could and got out. To my chagrin, there was no one waiting outside the door.
Now that I had already stepped out into waiting lounge, I could see another maitre-de trying to talk to a wide-eyed, white-faced Anu. I rushed to them and repeated that we wanted a table for two. This time the maitre-de was ready with a response. With a grin that threatened to reveal his all of his toothy wonders, he said there was one ready. The smiles disappeared from our faces. It was a pure stroke of luck that this fellow seemed to have remembered something urgent at that very moment and quickly disappeared before we could respond.
All this was being played out under the very observant gazes of the family that was waiting there. Realizing that it would all look very fishy to that family if we just walked out from there, we sat down, without a clue as to what we were going to do next. Then dear old Anu, ( bless you, my dear!) came up with a brainwave. She said suddenly, “Give her a call and ask her if she will be late,”. If it was anybody with a lesser presence of mind in those circumstances, they would have surely balked out. My mind reeling under the surprise on hearing Anu talking gobbledy-gook, I must have said, “She will be late,” or something to that effect. After some uncomfortable minutes, during which the family was unashamedly staring at us with increasing curiosity, I got up, as if in a trance, and walked out into the dining hall, with a startled Anu, fast behind me, still imploring me to “Give her a call”.
Now, let me tell you, I am by no means a person who can keep a straight face in a comic situation. I’d die if I didn’t break out into uproarious laughter on hearing a PJ. You know how some people’s laughter is so very infectious, you will automatically start laughing, without a clue as to why you are doing so, on hearing them laugh so heartily. Well, I am one of these people having an unstoppable and contagious laughter.
Now, the laughter inside me was swelling up with every innocent-sounding “Why don’t you give her a call?”, from Anu. I had to let something out for fear of exploding into laughter. So I muttered, “ Who do you want me to call, dear?”. This was the last straw. I almost sprinted out of the dining hall, across the very puzzled guard and down the steps and burst out laughing.
I’m sure the guard and the valets became very, very suspicious when they saw us high-fiving and laughing our heads off. It was with great effort that we managed to walk back to Anu’s bike and get out of there before somebody called up NIMHANS to pick up 2 wackos who were literally going mad with laughter!!
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