Wedding Dress

It was the summer vacation between ninth and tenth.  Though the school had not reopened, classes in my tuition centre had already begun.   My uncle’s marriage was fixed at that time.  After many years, it was an occasion for the entire family to get together.  But my father did not want me to miss the tuition classes as I was in the tenth standard.  So, my mother and brother went to her house at Kollam three days before the wedding.  I and my father decided to go on the day of the wedding.  The marriage was at Ettumanoor, a small town near Kottayam.  

Readymade dresses were not so popular those days.  So, I had got a shirt and a trouser stitched for the wedding.  However, I didn’t want it to get dirty while travelling in train.  So, I packed my new dress in a small plastic bag.  There is a shop near my house at Kochi, which specializes in a variety of papads.  The masala papad from that shop was liked by everyone in my mother’s house.  So, we bought a packet of masala papad for them.  It put it in the same bag. 

On the day of the wedding, early morning, we boarded the Kayamkulam Passenger train from Ernakulam.  The train was not very crowded.  I jumped on to a window seat and hung my bag on a hook above the window.  As the train was about to leave, unexpectedly, two of my father’s friends boarded the train and sat opposite our seat.  My father got busy discussing the office related matters with them.  I started enjoying the beautiful morning scenery through the window – the lush green paddy fields, chirping birds, milk vendors – it was really nice to observe all this sitting in a passing train.  After some time, the cool breeze made me doze off.  I got up when my father patted on my shoulder saying, ‘come fast, we have reached Ettumanoor’.  Since the trains stopped at Ettumanoor only for a minute, we quickly got off the train.  We took an auto-rikshaw to the venue of the wedding.  As I was getting down from the rikshaw, I realised that I had forgotten to take my bag from the train.  It was a shock to me.  What will I wear now for the wedding?

After Ettumanoor the next stop for the train was Kottayam.  Even if we took a taxi and rushed to Kottayam, by the time we reach there, the train would have gone further.  So, it didn’t make sense to chase the train.  Ettumanoor was a small town, where shops selling readymade dresses were not many those days.  With a heavy heart, I attended the wedding in the same old dress that I had worn in the train.  In the group photo, one can see me standing in a corner with a fallen face.

Few days later, my father met his friends, who had travelled with us in the train.  They said, ‘as soon as the train left Ettumanoor, we saw that you had forgotten your bag.  So, we handed over that bag to the Station Master at Kottayam and told him that two people who got down at Ettumanoor had forgotten this.  Please give it to them if they come searching!

If that Station Master had a son of my age, he would have used that new dress.  Anyway, I am sure, he would have loved the taste of masala papad from Kochi!

Key Bunch

It was a normal morning.  I was getting ready to go to my Institute.  Suddenly, I realised that the key bunch with my office keys was missing.  I searched everywhere – table, cupboard, dining table, TV stand, newspaper rack.  But I could not find it.  I became nervous.  Prof. Malathi Bolar, a tough administrator, was our Director at that time and I could not imagine reporting to her that I had lost the keys.  More importantly, I was supposed to conduct an examination that day and the question papers were kept in an almirah in my cabin.  I thought I would have left the keys somewhere in the department the previous day and rushed to the department.  While I was leaving, my wife asked me, ‘Are you not wearing the shoes?’. I said, ‘No, I don’t have time, I will go in my chappals itself’.

I asked everyone in the department, but no one had seen my key bunch.  I searched all the places where I had gone the previous day – library, computer lab, conference room, classroom – but of no use.  A duplicate key of my cabin was available in the department’s office.  But the problem was, the almirah in which I had kept the question papers didn’t have a duplicate key.  The only key of the almirah was part of the bunch that was missing.  I asked the attender to bring the duplicate key of my cabin.  When he went to pick the key, I was hoping against hope that the almirah was not locked.  As soon as he opened my cabin with the duplicate key, I rushed to the almirah.  Yes, it was safely locked!

Suddenly I remembered that after locking my cabin I had been to the canteen the pervious evening.  I had gone for coffee with a colleague of mine, and we were involved in a serious discussion.  I was almost sure that I had left the keys there.  I went to the canteen and asked the manager, ‘Yesterday, I left my key bunch here, did you get it?’.  He said, ‘No Sir’.  I went to the table where we sat the previous evening.  The table was empty.  The manager told me, ‘If you had left it here, someone would have noticed it and handed over to me.  At least the boy who cleans the table would have seen’. He called the boy, but he too said he didn’t find any key bunch there.  I started walking back.  With just about 30 minutes left for the examination to start, the only option available was to get someone to break open the lock of the almirah and take the question papers. 

My phone rang.  It was my wife.  She asked, ‘Did you get the key bunch?’. I said, ‘No’. She said, ‘It is here, come’.  Oh, what a great relief! I went straight to my house.   I was hoping my wife to be standing there with the key bunch in her hand.  But as I entered my house, my wife asked me:

‘Did I not ask you, are you not wearing shoes?’ 

‘So what, the key bunch is inside the shoes?’

‘No, you first wear the shoes’

‘Why should I wear the shoes, where are the keys?’

‘You first wear the shoes’

Unwillingly I sat down to wear my shoes.  I picked up the socks that I had kept on a teapoy near the shoe-stand.  Lo! The key bunch was below my socks!  When I was leaving, I heard my wife say, ‘This is why I say, you must listen to your wife, sometimes’.