Ladies' Man
During my college days, I and my friends were what I consider now to be a fun loving lot. Our ‘gang’ constantly endeavored to have fun and on hindsight I think we were pretty successful at that. This is not to suggest we did not have our share of worldly woes and worries. We were quite concerned about our grades, our perennial shortage of money and our future (with a vague, far-away haziness).However, as might be the case anywhere, any time with adolescents (how about a brand of perfumes called “Adole-scents”) most of our “concern energy” was spent on the topics dealing with specimens of the opposite sex. I have rambled on thus far stating stereotypical factotums about young college going males to get you to appreciate the nuances of an incident involving one of our gang members.
Thomas George was his name and he hailed from an affluent back ground (in comparison with most others of our gang). In line with what is expected of the affluent class, he almost always obliged to pay up the petty expenses that our company cost by way of cigarettes, snacks and the occasional drink or two. Thomas was a short, hefty giant with bushy eyebrows and generally lot of hair all over him expect were it mattered the most. He seemed to have a receding hairline (which interestingly, seems to have maintained its general characteristics even after all these years) and surprisingly the countenance of a lamb. As you may have imagined, he was a privileged member of the gang mostly on the grounds of the power of the contents of his wallet. One other characteristic that is worth mentioning is that he hardly said anything, I mean the guy hardly spoke anything if he could he help it. If I may add, his was not the silence of the wise or of the intelligentsia but of the lowest quality, the one that stems from a general lack of imagination. In short he was quite remarkable by way of his physique and quite the opposite by way of his intellect. I will not go into the gory details of why he was still an integral part of our gang (which he was, I assure you) but you should get the picture by now.
It was the third year of college and one muggy night we were all lying on our back on the terrace of the Men’s hostel (as was customary on the nights before the semester examinations). It was mid-summer and the meager supply of drinks (bought with Thomas’s money) was not doing much other than making the bite of mosquitoes slightly more bearable than when one was sober. Thimman (name roughly translates to “the glutton”; real name I have forgotten, I am told even his mom started calling him Thimman after four years of college) said “Guys, we need to help our Thomman (affectionate nick name for Thomas)”. Thimman waited for a few seconds and having made sure only the crickets responded to his suggestion continued.
“We need to find Thomman a girl friend, he is lonely and needs female company” Thomas made an attempt to protest from the far corner of the terrace and as it happened usually with him , what the rest of us heard was a groan that sounded like “umm..rr.umm” or something like that. Gaining confidence that he never needed anyway or lacked, Thimman went on articulating the problem statement further.
“There are 60 odd girls in Electrical and I can bet, till date he has not even smiled let alone talk to even one”. “That’s true” – interjected Jose who was Thomas’s class mate and the master mind behind having got Thomas into our gang.
“So what, why does he have to talk to girls, I mean aren’t we good enough company” questioned the cynical realist of our lot - Kanchan. As usual, we ignored Kanchan and got into planning the next steps to convert Thomas into a Ladies’ man. There were several ideas put forward in the next few minutes and everyone agreed that Thomma had to be given a make-over to convert him to be a Ladies’ man.
Hair dressers, beauticians, tailors were pressed into service at a war footing. Fashion magazines were consulted, close-up pictures of film stars analyzed and height enhancing foot wear purchased. A few days later and a few thousand rupees lighter, Thomas landed for the semester exam in a complete new look. He stood at least 3 inches taller in his fat heeled shoes, had gleaming gelled up hair covering any indication of impending baldness and a gentle yet strong perfume seemed to fill the room as he walked in. He wore a swanky T-shirt and in-style worn out jeans and a watch with a huge dial that seemed to weigh a ton going by how he held his hand up. Truth must be said, lot of heads turned when Thomas waded in to the examination room and for the first time ever Thomas felt how it was to have a room full of girls stare at him in unison. Exams are taken very seriously by the females and as is their habit they all quickly returned to their books trying to get the maximum out of the last 5 minutes before the start of the exam.
Thomas’s fashion parade continued on the remaining exam days and by the time the exams were over there must have been some discussions among the girls on what had hit Thomas. College re-opened after a short holiday and we re-grouped to evaluate the success of our Thomas strategy and to chalk out the plans to meet our objective. Terrace was again the venue and Jose started saying he had overheard Ranjini and Kavitha of his class talking about Thomas’s hairstyle. He could not hear them clearly from his perk on the back bench but he could bet he heard “awesome”, “stylish” and “Thomas” which were words no one had used in one sentence ever before. Thimman the initiator of the project was not satisfied, “this is not good enough, the girls, at least the ugly ones need to start talking to Thomman, we can say we are at least barely successful only after that”.
Thomas took all this in usual silent inexpressive way and if he had any pleasure or discomfort he chose to not exhibit it. He continued to pay “the cost of our company” and as far as I was considered that meant all was well. I got little busy with studies as I had some “targets” set by people at home and finally I realized I may have to work hard to get through college. Two or three weeks passed with me getting no regular updates and one night I joined the star gazing gang on the terrace to get up to speed and also to get out of the stress of studying hard for the first time in life. I could not hold my curiosity any longer “So, how is the Ladies’ man project going on?” Thimman was first to respond “Don’t tell me you don’t know”, Jose added “How will he know, he hasn’t looked up from his books last few weeks”. “Thomas, why don’t you update Mr. Studious yourself” Kanchan proposed. I turned around and from his corner in the terrace Thomas emerged. I could see his hair gel gleam in the moonlight and for the first time I could see a faint smile on Thomas’s face. I snorted in whatever was left in my glass and sat up to listen. Thomas started speaking, not the mechanical grunts that I was expecting to hear but clear words spoken with a conviction and confidence that I had never even dreamt Thomas could have. It was wonderful to hear him speak - replete with facial expressions, meaningful body movements and that faint smile in the background. I must say I was mesmerized by the change and did not hear a lot of what he said but the message was loud and clear. He did not feel shy talking to girls anymore and neither did they run away from him. There were lot of common topics of interest and he had made at least a handful of good friends and was in talking terms with all others in his class. He had phone numbers of many of the girls and was proudly showing me the contacts list on his phone, I felt thirsty and slightly dizzied by all I heard and saw in the past few minutes and looked around to see if there was anything left to throw down my throat. The bottles were empty and knowing Jose always kept some stock in his room for emergency needs I pulled him up and walked towards the stairs. I kept my voice as low as possible “I know for a fact that it is not the makeover, I have a strong feeling you are behind all this, what did you do?” “Oh, me? nothing much, I spread the rumor among the girls that Thomman is gay and rest sort of worked out itself”
This is obviously a fictional piece, but the personal connection to the story, I do not attempt to deny .
© 2010 Manoj Chennamangalam 'Reclusive Bloggers of the world Unite !!'
Thomas George was his name and he hailed from an affluent back ground (in comparison with most others of our gang). In line with what is expected of the affluent class, he almost always obliged to pay up the petty expenses that our company cost by way of cigarettes, snacks and the occasional drink or two. Thomas was a short, hefty giant with bushy eyebrows and generally lot of hair all over him expect were it mattered the most. He seemed to have a receding hairline (which interestingly, seems to have maintained its general characteristics even after all these years) and surprisingly the countenance of a lamb. As you may have imagined, he was a privileged member of the gang mostly on the grounds of the power of the contents of his wallet. One other characteristic that is worth mentioning is that he hardly said anything, I mean the guy hardly spoke anything if he could he help it. If I may add, his was not the silence of the wise or of the intelligentsia but of the lowest quality, the one that stems from a general lack of imagination. In short he was quite remarkable by way of his physique and quite the opposite by way of his intellect. I will not go into the gory details of why he was still an integral part of our gang (which he was, I assure you) but you should get the picture by now.
It was the third year of college and one muggy night we were all lying on our back on the terrace of the Men’s hostel (as was customary on the nights before the semester examinations). It was mid-summer and the meager supply of drinks (bought with Thomas’s money) was not doing much other than making the bite of mosquitoes slightly more bearable than when one was sober. Thimman (name roughly translates to “the glutton”; real name I have forgotten, I am told even his mom started calling him Thimman after four years of college) said “Guys, we need to help our Thomman (affectionate nick name for Thomas)”. Thimman waited for a few seconds and having made sure only the crickets responded to his suggestion continued.
“We need to find Thomman a girl friend, he is lonely and needs female company” Thomas made an attempt to protest from the far corner of the terrace and as it happened usually with him , what the rest of us heard was a groan that sounded like “umm..rr.umm” or something like that. Gaining confidence that he never needed anyway or lacked, Thimman went on articulating the problem statement further.
“There are 60 odd girls in Electrical and I can bet, till date he has not even smiled let alone talk to even one”. “That’s true” – interjected Jose who was Thomas’s class mate and the master mind behind having got Thomas into our gang.
“So what, why does he have to talk to girls, I mean aren’t we good enough company” questioned the cynical realist of our lot - Kanchan. As usual, we ignored Kanchan and got into planning the next steps to convert Thomas into a Ladies’ man. There were several ideas put forward in the next few minutes and everyone agreed that Thomma had to be given a make-over to convert him to be a Ladies’ man.
Hair dressers, beauticians, tailors were pressed into service at a war footing. Fashion magazines were consulted, close-up pictures of film stars analyzed and height enhancing foot wear purchased. A few days later and a few thousand rupees lighter, Thomas landed for the semester exam in a complete new look. He stood at least 3 inches taller in his fat heeled shoes, had gleaming gelled up hair covering any indication of impending baldness and a gentle yet strong perfume seemed to fill the room as he walked in. He wore a swanky T-shirt and in-style worn out jeans and a watch with a huge dial that seemed to weigh a ton going by how he held his hand up. Truth must be said, lot of heads turned when Thomas waded in to the examination room and for the first time ever Thomas felt how it was to have a room full of girls stare at him in unison. Exams are taken very seriously by the females and as is their habit they all quickly returned to their books trying to get the maximum out of the last 5 minutes before the start of the exam.
Thomas’s fashion parade continued on the remaining exam days and by the time the exams were over there must have been some discussions among the girls on what had hit Thomas. College re-opened after a short holiday and we re-grouped to evaluate the success of our Thomas strategy and to chalk out the plans to meet our objective. Terrace was again the venue and Jose started saying he had overheard Ranjini and Kavitha of his class talking about Thomas’s hairstyle. He could not hear them clearly from his perk on the back bench but he could bet he heard “awesome”, “stylish” and “Thomas” which were words no one had used in one sentence ever before. Thimman the initiator of the project was not satisfied, “this is not good enough, the girls, at least the ugly ones need to start talking to Thomman, we can say we are at least barely successful only after that”.
Thomas took all this in usual silent inexpressive way and if he had any pleasure or discomfort he chose to not exhibit it. He continued to pay “the cost of our company” and as far as I was considered that meant all was well. I got little busy with studies as I had some “targets” set by people at home and finally I realized I may have to work hard to get through college. Two or three weeks passed with me getting no regular updates and one night I joined the star gazing gang on the terrace to get up to speed and also to get out of the stress of studying hard for the first time in life. I could not hold my curiosity any longer “So, how is the Ladies’ man project going on?” Thimman was first to respond “Don’t tell me you don’t know”, Jose added “How will he know, he hasn’t looked up from his books last few weeks”. “Thomas, why don’t you update Mr. Studious yourself” Kanchan proposed. I turned around and from his corner in the terrace Thomas emerged. I could see his hair gel gleam in the moonlight and for the first time I could see a faint smile on Thomas’s face. I snorted in whatever was left in my glass and sat up to listen. Thomas started speaking, not the mechanical grunts that I was expecting to hear but clear words spoken with a conviction and confidence that I had never even dreamt Thomas could have. It was wonderful to hear him speak - replete with facial expressions, meaningful body movements and that faint smile in the background. I must say I was mesmerized by the change and did not hear a lot of what he said but the message was loud and clear. He did not feel shy talking to girls anymore and neither did they run away from him. There were lot of common topics of interest and he had made at least a handful of good friends and was in talking terms with all others in his class. He had phone numbers of many of the girls and was proudly showing me the contacts list on his phone, I felt thirsty and slightly dizzied by all I heard and saw in the past few minutes and looked around to see if there was anything left to throw down my throat. The bottles were empty and knowing Jose always kept some stock in his room for emergency needs I pulled him up and walked towards the stairs. I kept my voice as low as possible “I know for a fact that it is not the makeover, I have a strong feeling you are behind all this, what did you do?” “Oh, me? nothing much, I spread the rumor among the girls that Thomman is gay and rest sort of worked out itself”
This is obviously a fictional piece, but the personal connection to the story, I do not attempt to deny .
© 2010 Manoj Chennamangalam 'Reclusive Bloggers of the world Unite !!'
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