He rubbed his eyes again and again. He found it very hard to digest the fact. Already his stomach had been misbehaving with him in its function of digestion for the past few days due to the hotel food, but this fact – well it was harder to digest.
The fact was that he needed to grab a contract from a client for painting a building, and he had asked his wife to pick up a new shirt for this purpose. He failed to understand what nefarious intentions she had in mind – but she had picked out a RED SHIRT for his meeting with the client. RED.
Though he carried out a thorough analysis of the shirt from various angles, rubbed the sleepiness from his eyes and even put on his glasses – he put the glasses on and stared at it, he took off his glasses and attempted in vain to flap out the color, but no. A red shirt is what he had. Bright, stubborn red.
He sighed and put it on. In front of the mirror, he looked like some out-of-work clown who wanted to scare the pants off the elite fashion designers in town.
“Wow, you look phenomenal!” Cried his wife cheerily.
“Phenomenal enough to be arrested for blinding a few unsuspecting humans on the road!” he grumbled.
“Oh, come on! It’s not that bad. Red is the color of bricks. And you’re the one who’s going to paint the bricks right?”
Wow, if there ever was an award for crappy logic, there would be no second guesses to whom that would go to, thought he.
With a worried disposition he mounted his bicycle and wobbled unsteadily. But as the breeze conditioned his face, he soon forgot about the monstrosity that was personified by the red shirt.
The leaves that passed him by as he looked skyward while cycling; the fresh breeze; he could see the leaves disappearing, then as he pedaled on the sky appearing from the greenery of the leaves.
Suddenly, he saw a blob of white descending towards him at high velocity. Before his nature-enjoying mind could comprehend what this might be, the black, feathered creator of the white blob (commonly addressed ‘crow’) had delivered a small lump of white substance (commonly addressed as bird shit) on to his red shirt.
The angle at which the crow had delivered its stuff was deadly in its accuracy and now, the red shirt sported a tinge of white on it.
Now this really perturbed our hero; he was not too happy with the red shirt to begin with, and now his shirt also sported a rather freaky white stain, adding to his out-of-work clown façade. As he stopped at a local tea kadai to get a water packet to try and clean off the stain.
In the meantime, a mama whose house happened to be right opposite the tea kadai was eagerly anticipating someone to drop by… He was talking on his mobile phone –
“Aan, Shenbagam mami, where is your son? I have been waiting for him for the past 20 minutes. I want to introduce him to my daughter.. As I have been saying, they will make a very good couple.”
“I know mama, he is on his way. He is so eco friendly so he will be coming there by cycle. You can identify him by his Red Shirt. He might initially be scared about the whole concept of marriage. Please talk to him slowly and make him understand the importance of all this!”
“Yes sure… Oh I think I see him now! He is wearing the red shirt and coming on a cycle! I will go and bring him in!”
Saying so the mama rushed forward and grabbed our hero, who was just buying a water packet to cleanse the crow shit.
“Come come maaplai! Oh dear, this is not good.. These crows are always a menace! Come in, come in! We’ll get it off in a jiffy!”
Now our hero was dumbstruck and in the beginning, his reaction was limited to – “Err?!?!?!?!” but then he realized that some nutty guy was actually offering to get the stain off his shirt; so he followed the mama.
“Here, here, have some fresh filter coffee. My daughter only made it!”
The coffee turned out to be extremely sugary, horrendous tasting, nearly tongue eliminating. God save the guy who marries that girl, thought our hero. And then the mama spoke and threw in a bombshell which was far worse than the coffee –
“Your mother and I have decided it’s time for you to marry my daughter.”
Our hero choked and writhed uncontrollably; the coffee cup fell from his hand; he was almost shivering. The prospect of two wives was making him dizzy.
“Maaplai, maaplai! What happened!”
“Err.. I am not a maaplai. In fact, I’m already married. Not happily married or anything, but married nonetheless!”
“Oh, you can’t wriggle out so easily maaplai. Your mom told me you might be fickle minded about this…”
At this point of time, our hero was fuming over the ancient practices of our ancestors and swearing. The women had the yellow thread and toe ring (thaali and metti) to prove that they were married. How the hell do men prove it?!
“Mama, whatever it is, I need to take your daughter out for a drink together and have a one night stand with her before deciding if she can be my life partner.”
Mama suddenly entered palpitation mode. It was his turn to give the drama like reactions.
“What? Drink ah? Night ah! Abacharam, abacharam!” (A classic tamil expression ruthlessly condemning all things sweet and pure such as drinking, smoking, and other enjoyable activities)
“Yea, think about it and let me know. Now if you’ll excuse me…” Saying so, our hero made a hasty exit.
Just when he was still worried about the white stain on his red shirt, he was accosted by a couple of villagers who were pretty excited to see him.
“Ayya!! Vanakkam Ayya! You are the champ right?”
Oh dear, here we go again. What is it this time?
“No, I am not a champ. I am probably the champ of Loserism, but hell, I’m dead sure that’s not who you are looking for.”
The two village get up guys were talking in strange dialects excitedly.
“Saar, you are the champ! Red shirt, white mark… They are the colors of our organization!”
“What freaking mark you doofus! This is a crow shit stain!”
“No no, you are coming with us now! We are going for the Jallikattu! You are the Jallikattu champ right… Yes, yes we were told that you didn’t like publicity. Saar come on, come with us!”
Amidst cries and protests of “You bunch of thick headed freaks! Let me go or I’m gonna ensure a bull’s butt is thrust in your face!”, our hero was carried into a cleverly concealed ground, where about six to seven others were waiting with eager faces. Villager number one mumbled with reverence, “Wow, did you hear our champ abuse us? Even his abuse is related to bulls!”
In the midst of the illegal jallikattu ground stood our hero, dust gathering at his sweaty forehead. He had to admit that this gave him a very tamil hero like feel, though how he ever got himself into this mess was beyond comprehension.
The bull looked like he was going to do some serious damage. Our hero wondered what sin he had committed in his past life. A small lump was forming in his throat. With an unmatched suddenness, the accursed bull charged towards our hero in the red shirt; this was when our hero realized that he was wearing the color RED!
Hero quickly took off his shirt and threw it far away. Bull followed the flying shirt for a while. In the meantime, our hero was rapidly trying to make an exit from the other side. The villagers were grumbling amongst themselves…
“Isn’t it shameful that our champ has a potbelly? It doesn’t look like he is a champion at all! And to think we came all the way to the city for this! Look how he is running from the bull!”
It was then that some background music seemed to be emanating from the ground.
“Eh like a lion, like a lion my darling grandson is walking….” Some old hag seemed to be singing…
A heavily muscled individual with attitude entered the ring. The TRUE CHAMP had arrived, much to the cheering and applause of the crowd. Now this was a champion!
Just 15 minutes later, our hero was given back his crow crap stained shirt, and the champ who had just tamed a bull was laughing in his face…
“Hahaha! How could they think someone like you was the champ? You don’t even have the qualities to be the guy who cleans out the bull’s dung!”
“Err.. Thank you? I’ve really got to go, Mr. Champ. Thank you for the timely entry, failing which I would’ve made an exit from the world itself!”
“What, where are you going? You need to have lunch! Come here man; try some of this fish kozhambu. It’s unbelievable!”
“No, no, I’ve got to be leaving…”
“I insist!”
“No no, I’m leaaaaaaavvvv” At this point of time, the degree of ‘horribility’ of our hero’s situation deepened. The fish kozhambu had spilt on his red shirt. Our hero’s life suddenly started moving in slow motion; “Nooooooooooo!” He cried.
Rrrrrrrrrrr…. (Reel is winding at normal speed now and Fast forwarding)
Location – Client’s building site.
One of our hero’s competitors was wearing an expensive business suit.
Another was wearing a well pressed formal shirt.
And our hero, well, nothing can be said about his impeccable red shirt with a white crow crap stain; it was exquisite in its design. And while the other competitors smelt of expensive perfume, our hero’s scent was unmistakable and unmaskable – the scent of the fish kozhambu on his shirt!
The client came outside adorned with a white dhoti, white shirt, heavy gold chain, ridiculously huge gold ring and an uninterested attitude. The competitors lined up… They would be questioned in depth about their quotes separately. But wait! What’s this? The client suddenly sniffed something so divine…
Something so familiar… Something out of this world… His grandmom’s Fish Kuzhambu?!?!?! But how was it possible here? Oh my God, that man in the red shirt… He was the man!
The client’s eyes were watering.
“Thambi, come here. Thambi, let me get a whiff of you. You smell brilliant!” Saying so, the client hugged our hero.
“My granny…” He said and sobbed!!
Rrrrrrrrrrr…. (Reel is fast forwarding)
“Wife, you are not going to believe what happened.”
“Who cares? Did you get the contract or not?”
“Yes I did, and through the most unbelievable series of events!”
“Thank God you clinched it! See I told you the RED SHIRT would work! What color did the client want you to paint the building?”
“RED.”
