Many of us would feel good to have food in a swanky restaurant. And surely, the pleasure and excitement would be double, if you occupy the opposite chair to a singing star. So, you can imagine the excitement when a friend and I were invited by a playback singer, who we had interviewed, for dinner.

On the day of the interview, we were made to wait for nearly an hour, as the singer was out on personal work. Finding us at his residence on his return, he was profusely apologetic for having made us wait. The interview, I should say, was excellent. The way he described his difficult and challenging journey to playback singing was precisely the stuff that would fire up journalists to write a compelling copy.

At the end of the interview, the singer could notice that we were quite exhausted and apologised once again for not being able to offer us anything. “Perhaps, if you are free tomorrow evening, we can go out for dinner,” he said. More than the food, the prospect of having dinner with a famous man excited us. We told him that we would meet him in the house of another musician the next evening.

Despite our preoccupations the next day, our minds were on the dinner we would have with the singer. A big fan of my mother’s preparations at home, I found her surprised when I instantly turned down her offer to make palpayasam for the night.

Around seven in the evening, we drove down to the house of the musician where we agreed to meet the singer. Our conversation was mostly about the band of new singers in films, music in recent movies and the ethics behind sampling. Though it was absorbing, we didn’t forget the reason behind our visit.

When the conversation was finally over, we expected the singer to call us for dinner. Instead, he was bidding goodbye. “But… Aren’t we suppose to go for dinner?” asked my desperately hungry friend, peering at his watch.

We don’t know if the singer had really forgotten about the programme or simply pretended to have forgotten it. But his final words broke us: “Oh, is it so? I have to get back, we will see some other time.” The disappointment became worse, as we realised it was too late even to have dinner in a restaurant.