Mother of all faux pas

Who, amongst us, will deny that we haven’t had embarrassing moments in our lives? I will be the first one to admit that I have had a series of embarrassing episodes, but can recount only three due to space limitations.

The first one occurred during one of my jogging expeditions. I am a jogger and therefore I keep looking for new sites to fulfill my passion. This one time, I found a small park that charged a nominal fee for entry, which I paid up.

During the second round of my jog, I found a girl striding towards me and I said to myself, not bad, I still have some residual magnetic attraction. On the next round, she came closer and I smiled at her and murmured to myself, not bad at all. I was waiting for the third round connection when she came so close that I was tripped off the track to an uneven surface.

I regained my balance and resumed running only to be stopped by a gentleman, who said that he was the secretary of the park and that I was running in the wrong direction upsetting the young lady in question. I was red faced and I knew that it was not attraction but distraction that the woman had felt. I sprinted out of the park quickly to avoid a sneer.

The second awkward moment took place when a colleague of mine and I were at the airport, leaving for Delhi. I caught sight of someone I knew approaching us, but couldn’t remember his name or the last time I met him. I whispered to my colleague asking him to extend his hand for handshake and introduce himself, hoping that the guy would reveal his name and I would be saved from embarrassment.

The fellow hugged me warmly, patted me on the shoulder and said, “Dinesh, it was lovely being with your friends and you last Saturday for dinner, and what a meal your wife had served. Do convey my regards to her.” Our flight was announced and I saved myself from further unease. But that was not the end. My colleague mocked me all through the flight and the incident went viral on the Internet.

Last but not the least, my third foot in the mouth moment happened when I was away on a business trip in Dhaka. My significant half’s wishlist included Dhakai saris. Engrossed with my work, this important task got deleted from my hard disc and I landed at the then Calcutta and shared my oversight with our company’s distributor.

He made little of it and took me to a shop that specialised in Dhakai saris.
To mask my guilt, I bought two extra saris. Back home, I was declared colour blind because her blues were different than mine, as were all the other colours. The good outcome was that I was prohibited from buying anything for her in the future and that came as a relief because if there is one job I hate, that is shopping.

A few months later, the distributor landed in our home for dinner and asked my wife, “Bhabhiji, how did you like the Dhakai saris that I had helped sir buy in Calcutta?” All I could do was to gulp my drink and get up to pour another.
However, there are no prizes for guessing what followed after the departure of the Calcuttan.