It is truly said that The Lord above has a sense of humour. He has blessed those that say the most politically incorrect things with the loudest and clearest voice, one that can be heard above others and the surrounding noise. Our PNC Shambhu was one such recipient of The Lord’s blessings. When he was a grown adult, he was slightly deaf, which added a couple of notches on the volume settings to his voice. He had a clear, deep, booming and loud resonant sound with a South Indian accent in which every sound and syllable was enunciated.
One day, the married PNC Shambhu was visiting a newly opened shop in a mall nearby with his wife. It was a beauty salon with a complete range of services from hair-cutting, colouring, nail-trimming, sauna, tanning, eyebrow plucking, detoxification of many things, to heavy-duty work such as face painting (they called it ‘Make Up’). The grand vision of its owners was advertised as – “Come in and when you walk out, you will not recognise yourself.”
It was a bright, shiny store with mirrors everywhere at every angle, very plush décor and furnishing. There were fancy chairs that looked like the ones at the dentist’s or on a space station. When Shambhu and his wife entered, it was almost fully occupied with new customers being offered great promotional offers. There were many women in all sorts of seats, under various stages of processing, being catered to by about a dozen bustling and extremely well-groomed, neat, elegant, spectacularly good-looking all female staff, who looked like celebrity models and were each a walking advertisement for the new shop.
There were a couple of staff members just to greet the entering customers, leading them to be seated in a lovely waiting area with a great view of the ‘arena’ where all the customers were being worked on. There was pleasant light music playing in the background and a hint of expensive perfume in the air. The waiting customers were offered a choice of drinks from coffee, tea to more esoteric choices of mineral water and herbal teas. A surprisingly low and subdued hum emanating from various machinery at work in the arena, could be heard in the seating area.
Immediately, Shambhu and his wife looked up at the elegant, electronic screen menu above the nearby cash register. As expected the prices for most services seemed to be mistaken by a shift in the decimal place, but they knew it was no mistake. Shambhu had always wanted to treat his wife to an experience in such a place and she was looking forward to it too, not that she needed it. Shambhu’s wife was woman with both an attractive appearance and personality, even without any additions or subtractions to her natural look.
The person who led them to be seated was introducing the salon’s services and explaining things to Shambhu’s wife, having noted that he seemed to be in a sort of daze, looking around with a confused expression. It was a normal sight in her experience. Shambhu’s wife was more calm and collected and listened carefully. She had a sudden urge to reconsider the list of services she had originally planned to avail of -the sticker shock had been too much. She was asked what she wanted done and she just recited what she had planned with some hesitation. She was mentally adding up the cost and half-way through, felt it was a bit much. She looked toward Shambhu for some kind of indication. What would he feel? Or what would he say? She knew he was a generous soul and did not begrudge her anything he could afford. She felt that while they could not afford to be regulars here, they could afford occasional visits to this little slice of heaven. Shambhu was still looking around him at all the lights, gadgets, instruments, people and seemed to be lost. She nudged him to get his attention. He turned towards her and their greeting angel.
“So, what do you think?” Shambhu's wife asked timidly. She fervently hoped he had been listening to her shortened list of services and wanted to hear what he had to say. Would he encourage her to go on with the list or let it be truncated? She thought she knew him, but on another level, she wanted to test him.
The question seemed to surprise Shambhu as it appeared to have suddenly brought him back from his reverie.
“Nice place! Very Nice!!” Shambhu answered with a beaming smile and looking all around, seemingly confirming his wife’s fear that he had not really been paying attention. Then he continued on in his booming, clear, loud voice that cut through all the background noise so that everyone in the store could hear him, even the ladies with space helmets with personal ear-phones in their space-craft cockpits, around the store.
“All the people working here are so good-looking, even better than the customers!”
There was a sudden quiet as all heads turned towards Shambhu. The emotions within those heads varied widely between the staff and the customers. Shambhu’s wife was mortified.
Blissfully unaware, Shambhu continued sincerely to his wife, “Hey, you should get that toe and sauna treatment done as well. I am sure you will enjoy it. Maybe I will go and get the grocery shopping done, go home, put them away and come back later to pick you up? What do you say?”
Shambhu’s wife and those in that store, who had looks that would have killed Shambhu if they could, suddenly had mixed feelings about him.
“Ok, Dear! I will get all that done. You come back in a couple of hours,” said Shambhu’s wife quietly, smiling to herself. She caught a few knowing winks from the other customers. She sat down as Shambhu walked out waving to her. He did not notice all the eyes tracking him as he left the store.
“So, let’s go over all that you want done today. And how will you be paying?” asked the store lady.
“Well, he will be paying when he comes back,” said Shambhu’s wife.
“That’s right, sweetie! He should pay for all this, all his life,” quipped an elderly lady customer who was sitting nearby. She too had a loud voice that carried around the store.
Suddenly, laughter broke out, all around the store. Shambhu’s wife could not contain herself and she too laughed out loud. Even the professional looking store staff could not contain themselves. They all joined in.
“He is a good generous man,” said Shambhu’s wife to the old lady.
“But he will pay!!” she added laughing.
In a couple of hours, Shambhu came back to the store. He did not notice the wicked smile with which the staff member at the cash register asked him, “Sir, are you here to pay?”
“Yes,” he answered sincerely. He paid the bill and left.
He did not notice the peal of laughter and giggles that rang out as he left the store. He did not notice his wife turn around to wave to a dozen new friends she had made in the store.
Copyright (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2015
All rights reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment