T(r)oothfully

Every time I landed in Kolkata, he was among the first few people I would meet. Sometimes, we set up a meeting date even before I had reached Kolkata. With a thumping heart and sweat trickling down my face due to my nervousness, I would go meet him. And then, he would usher me inside, close the door behind him, ask me to lie down, grab my hand, and without wasting much time, go straight for my mouth. A quick summer romance, not really. For in the aftermath of all this action, we would often be left in tears, mine shed due to all the pain, and my father's, not shed, for the deep holes it made in his pocket.

This is the first time in many years that I have not had to see the dentist in Kolkata. Touchwood. Needless to say, my life is so much better for it and my smiles, so much brighter!

sunshine

A surprise in English

I book a hotel room in a tiny place in Malta. The website showed me exactly three hotels to choose from. The place is that tiny. Too late, I realized that my flight was arriving early morning, six hours before check-in time. I needed to notify the hotel because essentially, it is a house converted into a hotel where I need to ring the door bell. I cannot find an online email id. So I decide to make an international call, praying that someone understands English.

Hello?

Yes.

Do you speak English?

Yes.

I just made an online booking.

Yes.

I wanted to let you know that I will be arriving early in the morning.

Yes.

Will someone open the door?

Yes.

Can I leave my luggage with you?

Yes.

Great. I look forward to seeing you then.

Yes.

The man spoke nothing, absolutely nothing more than a yes during the entire conversation. I somehow knew that he did not understand English, and probably understood nothing of what I said. Darn, I should have taken a later flight. I should have chosen a different hotel with 24 hour reception.

My train of thought was not complete when I received an email within five minutes of the phone conversation.

"Dear sunshine,

We just spoke on the phone. We will do our best to get you an early check-in failing which there is a place to store your luggage. Thank you for choosing to stay with us. Please find the directions and the website of the bus service which will be in operation during the time you are here. Last night bus is at 22:30 hrs. If you would like an airport transfer please let us know, the charge for all passengers = €15.00. If you are taking a cab or shuttle this is the address that you will need to give to the driver. Ring the bell of this door to be let in. 

Directions from the bus terminal: Please follow the directions carefully. (Meticulous directions provided). If possible could you send us your flight number or similar? The taxi fare from the airport is €15,00. The bus service is also very good provided you don't have heavy luggage as there is a short walk from the terminus. The most frequent bus is this number. Please let us know if there is anything else we can help you with? Regards, Name and WhatsApp number."

Wow! This guy wrote perfect English. I wonder why he said nothing more than a yes on the phone. Living in this part of Germany always makes me assume that most people do not speak English.

The guy turned out to be an Englishman!

sunshine

Raj- The Savior

It was a perfect recipe for the biggest goof up. Well, come a certain Monday, I received my I-20 form (the document that allows you to get a visa interview date in the first place). I read it and re-read it for the umpteenth time, happy that things were working out finally. By Tuesday, I had paid the money to the bank, got myself a professional set of photos for the visa interview, compared it with my last set of visa photos taken 4 years ago, and thunked my head multiple times on the wall after seeing the massive havoc adipose tissue has caused to my face ever since. By Wednesday, I was looking at the set of dates available for the interview.

Available days: Monday. Tuesday. Thursday. Friday.

Monday was 5 days away. Tuesday 6. Thursday 8. Putting it off until Friday would surely cause me a nervous breakdown.

And then I remembered. My friend was visiting Kolkata from Bangalore for a couple of days, arriving on Sunday. I really wanted to meet and maximize my time with him. Guiltily, I weighed my options. Ideally I should have scheduled my interview on Monday. But that would mean being sufficiently engaged with the preparations for visa interview that I wouldn’t have enough time to spend with him. Although my foremothers would advice against doing anything crazy for a guy you are not going to marry (which includes postponing a visa interview by 4 days), I pressed the “confirm” button for the Thursday 8:15 am slot. Foremothers’ voices were put on mute for a while.

By Sunday, the Raj Mistry had sufficiently jinxed my plans of meeting my friend for the next 3 days. He decided to work under supervision starting Sunday and hence now I was not meeting my friend at all. The Raj Mistry by the way isn’t your next door Shah Rukh Khan look-alike guy from Karan Johar movies (though the name would suggest so). Amongst all the hilarious names prominently used by Bengalis like Pocha, Nadu Gopal, Joga (Jaw-ga), Keshto, and Poltu, Raj Mistry is what you call the craftsman who makes basic repairs in the house. Some home repairs had to be made at my friend’s place and he called to say he would not be able to meet me during this trip.

So now, I had just postponed my visa interview by 4 days for a reason that was not to be. Did I just hear the sarcasm-coated voices from my foremothers?

Sunday evening, I was bored to death. I tried making 4 different plans with friends but none of them worked out. Without sufficient preamble, getting hold of someone free enough on a Sunday evening turned out to be an impossible task. I wondered if the Raj Mistry was having fun with his chisel and hammer.

Bored, I resorted to my ever available friend- the internet. I logged on to Gmail and barely found anyone online. Need I be reminded it was Sunday evening and everyone was having fun outside? A friend from Florida logged in and I was glad to chit chat. His sister was just done with her visa interview and I asked how it went.

Sunshine: Visa is expensive. I just shelled out some INR 6.5k.

Florida Friend: Are you sure? My sister just shelled out INR 17k.

Sunshine: What !!!!

It turned out that there was a visa fee, and there was a SEVIS fee. They were separate. I don’t really goof up visa related things (or important things for that matter), but it seems senility is hitting me and I had this time. I don’t know how I missed the part where I had to pay the $200 SEVIS fee. I jogged my memory and remembered a friend of mine had done the same mistake and realized it on the day of the interview. The trouble was, it took 3 business day to get the SEVIS fee processed. I had Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday was the visa interview. And here I was nicely sitting at home, happy that visa related things were taken care of, and cursing my friend and the Raj Mistry.

It’s been a while since I had felt such shock, and felt relieved at the same time that I had realized and hence checked the possibility of a goof up right on time. Things could have gone wrong at multiple stages. I could have decided to listen to my foremothers and got the visa interview scheduled on Monday. The Raj Mistry could have not shown up and then I’d be meeting my friend and not be online to talk to my Florida friend. Fate had conspired in a way to get all my plans of going out on a Sunday evening jinxed so that I’d be online and talking to my friend. It turned out, like always, that I had done the right thing but for all the wrong reasons.

sunshine

Indecent Proposal.

So do you take a shower in the morning?

I was a little taken aback by the sudden intrusion of privacy. We were neighbors alright, and we worked in the same building. Yet what kind of a connection demanded an intimate question like this? For a moment, I wondered if I had body odor. Not that people ever complained I did. 

Well, yeah, I do.

Okhayi…good.

I wondered what was so good about it. We were walking together to take that bus to the department.

So are you going to take the shower again?

What?

Now? Would you?

Well, I don’t know. 

What was this guy up to? Irritation waned, and I had started to feel a little scared. Suddenly, the road ahead looked desolate. I could not wait to get to the bus stop.

You know what? I would be taking the shower. So you could take it with me, he offered suddenly.

My jaws dropped, and I stopped dead in my tracks. He did too. Why was the guy telling me all this in broad daylight, managing to look super cool and unperturbed? He was even smiling at me. He didn’t look drunk. He didn’t look stoned. Then what?

What did you just say?, I asked, trying hard not to lose my calm. Carefully, I squinted in the sun to look at his face as he repeated his offer again.

Would you take the shower with me?

I frowned as I read his lips. I wanted to give him the benefit of doubt. 

The what?

Shower? It was his turn to look confused now.

You mean? Please say it slowly?

Sh-aww-lle?

Did you say the s-h-u-t-t-l-e?, I asked slowly and carefully, reading his lips all the same. I even pointed to the bus stop a few steps away. You mean the white bus? The one that takes you to the medical center from the department?

Oh yeah yeah!. His face lit up. Would you take it with me?

Sure. Anytime.

With this, I heaved a sigh of relief. Accents can be funny. Asian accents, more so. 

Ever since, every morning we have been taking the shower together. The shuttle I mean.

sunshine.