Suit Up

After several months of putting off shopping for a suit, I finally gave in and bought one. Here's to the several  benefits it provides me - (1) not having to frantically go through the stores of Indore at the last minute, looking for one that didn't make me look like the protagonist of a B-grade local evening special (2) not having to rely on my brother's mothy blazer to get me through interviews and (3) being introduced to the magical world of pinstripes and things that make my shoulders look extra broad! That's right ladies, no more am I simply a Greek Adonis with the piercing brown eyes of a fire dragon and the equine features of an African purebreed. I now present my one symbol of steamy recherche that will impart to me the regal air of a melanistic lion - my preciousssssssss addition to the one ringed collection of wood shavings that constitutes my almirah - My Suit!

Do I not exude the sex appeal of Batman?

My reasons for going suit-hunting, however, were completely different. This winter I got a chance to indulge in some quality father-son bonding. My father (if you're reading this blog for the first time) is a maritime beast of a man. He has the fierce temperament of a sea-dwelling bull shark and a stern jaw not unlike that of Mandark from Dexter's Lab. His noted features include pepper-and-salt sideburns, drooping eye-bags and a bloated nose and he can only be described as fifty nine. Hence, naturally neither money nor a sensible salesman was any object at the Camac Street Pantaloons that was graced with our presence.

Over the course of the bonding, I discovered that my finesse at finely crafted and sometimes unintentional tomfoolery runs in the gene pool. To comprehend this completely and with appreciation, one must be alive to the fact that the Biswases view lunch as a solemn occasion and that they currently employ in their service a maid who goes by the name of Pushpa. So when the silent ritual of gleefully stuffing our mouths is interrupted by the mother calling for the maid, one would likely hear the call of "PUSHPAAAAA!...PUSHPAAAAA!" (with the appropriate intonation tuned to the urgency of the matter of course!). If one were a particularly conscientious person and presumably not a Biswas, (for as true as a Lannister who always pays his debts, a Biswas always finishes lunch) he might even find it in himself to get off his arse and look for the aforementioned maid. It is at this point that he might hear my father (still slowly chomping away, mind you) nonchalantly offer an explanation: "She's a flower...She's in the garden."

I now have sufficient reason to lay faith in the belief that along with the obvious knack for being objectionable, I might have inherited my father's senility as well. With me, memory seems to be only a happy dream of someday remembering my phone number or recollecting what all the hullabaloo over learning geography was about. Well - to be fair- my memory tends to well up at times with things long forgotten that give me a tingly feeling. Like the other day when I suddenly remembered the awkward fellow who attended classes 5 through 7 with us at St. James'. His name was Abhik Mukherjee or Albert Menon or something. He was incorrigible. Gold-framed glasses glinting crooked in the afternoon sun as they clung to the nub of his nose, Kermit-frog eyes looking at something beyond what's in front of him, trying to solve a Rubik's cube mentally while clutching the edges of his pants nervously. Abhik (let's say his name was Abhik) was mentally unsound in the kind of way that would cause many a seasoned HR recruiter to deem him "culturally unfit" were he to appear for MBA interviews. The facts were so irrefutable that you couldn't exactly cry foul either. The truth is Abhik Mukherjee failed at everything. He failed in class, he failed at several suicide attempts and he failed at making friends. He did gain immense popularity at one stage because of the new and innovative ways in which he tried to off himself though. Once, he fashioned a noose out of his tie, flung the other end over a hook in the wall and tried to tug the other end downwards. On another occasion, he put his mouth to the exhaust pipe of a motorcycle with the driver seated on it and affably remarked "Dada, start din!". On our school bus, he was notorious for trying to squeeze himself through the railings in the windows and getting stuck. I liked Abhik Mukherjee. There was never a dull moment when he was around. He was a hoot! His mother, on the other hand, was a bore. She was the school psychologist.

If it's the clothes that make a man, and it's true that if you aren't something you are nothing, then it goes without saying that in the crystal moments of bathroom clarity when you're staring into the mirror contemplating the worthlessness of your being, you are undoubtedly nude. These moments tend to happen to me very frequently for whatever reason. And quite often, in the changing rooms of clothes stores. On this occasion, I was bewildered by how my suit, while snug around the shoulders, seemed somewhat floppy and  loose around the mid section in a way that would make most girls pitifully remark "Oh Sweetie.." I began to question my otherwise tip-top physique. Was my chest not broad enough? Were my fat layers not fighting hard enough to overcome the resurgent abs? It all seemed a bit strange. As of yet, the only complaint I've ever had about my body is that I'm beginning to lose the pecks I'd built up over the last two years. (I have chest hair too, in case you were wondering. I have, like, 4 of them!) Soon, however, I made a discovery so incredible, it might well be the roots of a country-wide conspiracy. I discovered that suits are only tailor made for the kind of Indian men who can afford suits - that is, a bit pudgy around the mid-riff! What an outrage! Big Industry, huh? Selling us sex and exercycles and Shahid Kapoor and all manner of beautiful things with one hand and patting our rotund bellies with the other. Glossing the covers of magazines with the juicily waxed bodies of women who can only be wooed by a bit of turgidity in the belly, wrapped snug by an Armani flap. For shame!

So it shouldn't come as a big surprise to you that I have embarked on my journey to porcine supremacy. I now have access to bacon that looks as if it were carved out of healthier pigs than that in Indore. "The pigs taste like they were happy when they were killed", said my dad this morning chomping on the oily strips of hearty goodness, and letting out a tremendous fart, and then looking at the sheer disgust on my face, and  remarking, "What? You don't like bacon?"

"Dad.." I replied

"Yes?"

"You remember that little pair of scissors that we had in the bathroom?"

"The red one?"

"Yeah. The one you trimmed your nose hair with-"

"What about it?"

"I used to trim my pubes with it."

The satisfaction I feel from a few hours well spent with my dad is akin to what Abhik Mukherjee probably felt after a few sips of the whitener ink he periodically sucked on.