Monday, January 12, 2009

six two

in india, one is blessed to have the option to outsource certain mundane, trivial chores. ironing of clothes is one of these. damn! how much i miss it.

when I was in hyderabad, I used to walk to the ironing lady's shop, that was couple of streets away from my home, to drop clothes. the following day i collected the clothes minus the wrinkles.

on my first visit to this shop, I was unwelcome-d by a 5 year old kid who was standing at the shop's threshold. upon seeing me, he ran into the shop, stood at a distance, and stared. i gave him a smile, and a wink. no change of expression on his face and he continued to stare.

the kid welcomed me the same way on my next visit. my broken telegu, like "ikkada ra…" (come here), peter-english-hi, didn't help.

on the third visit, he garnered some guts ( I dunno from where!), and walked up to me. i smiled. his stare had now metamorphosed into an awe.

the kid set his head in a pendulum motion, and starting at my knee began to raster scan me. as his eyes reached mine, he stopped, sighed, and exclaimed, "enthaa...bedha manishi!". (what a big human!)

8 comments:

catcharun said...

so..did you promptly eat him like the monster he thought you were :)

Mak said...

May be you could not have paid some balance to the shop, i.e. the kid could have tried to catch and made u pay.

Thats all business technique man.... "not Betha manchian"

PRS said...

you did a lot of work by walking...i guess. at chennai, our "isthiri" would come to our place to pick up the clothes.

madraskaapi said...

@catch - i patted (hard enough ;-) the kid on his head, and from that moment on he stopped disapproving of nature's anomaly.

@mak - you cannot expect such business techniques in hyd, a beautiful laid back city.

@prs - we had to move out of the door delivery service provider as they delivered back the clothes with some wrinkles on them.

passer by said...

bedha proponent of child labor..

Kannan said...

Try Wash-and-wear cloths.

madraskaapi said...

wash-and-wear shirts, and the sweaters in winter, come in handy.

Unknown said...

Another Gulliver's Travels perhaps!... ;D