The first ever time I laid my eyes on him, I was a little shocked. Afterall, how many times do you see a helmet and glove-clad cyclist in our non-happening parking lot? I ignored him as another one of those crazy NRIs who’ll get rid of this silly habit as soon as the Bangalore auto fellows “yen re” him out of it…
So, another brilliant young scientist in our organization’s booty who’s gonna bury his nose in the papers, tans and vanish from public view very soon. Wrong. Annual day sees this maverick in a Bermuda, bright- green T-shirt and cap sharing the ramp with some of our pretty ladies. The same Postdoctoral researcher from the University of Calgary, whose nose was supposed to be submerged in tans by now! No way.
The other day, when I started my diet for the ‘n’th time and was blissfully content with my attempts at reducing those never-say-die tyres, out comes Dr. Audi brandishing a box of choicest of American chocolates in front of my eyes. Now how many women do you know, who can refuse a pack of dark, nutty, ah-so-deliciously-melt-in-the-mouth chocolate? So my poor conscience was pushed ruthlessly into silence and my tongue conquered my dwindling will again. All thanks to this cyclist cum scientist, post-doc!
The next time I saw him, he was totally bald and all smiles!! Ask him the reason and you get some wacky excuse like- “this is just to beat the heat”!!! Now not many guys have guts to shave their crowning glory just to thrash the rising mercury… hmmm something definitely strange here.
Fate was not going to let me go on ignoring the amusing discoveries I was making about Manirban or “Thakur Saab” or “Moody” as his team mates lovingly (and aptly) address him. I Googled him and discovered approximately (read more than) 10 pages of the internet singing his scientific and extracurricular praises.
I’d rather bullet my findings and try to summarize them as much as possible:
- He is an environmental friendly cyclist (we knew that one...)
- He is head-over-heels into social service (ok this is new)
- He has started out on several social initiatives like solar energy use, community schooling in slums, livelihood generation for slum-women, promoting corporate social responsibilities etc. etc. (WOW!)
- He is a Web Coordinator and Social Media Strategist (Oooh!)
- He is a traveler (loves the beaches of the world)and avid photographer (you should see some of those really great snaps)
- He is a web page and brochure designer (will this list ever end?)
I could go on and on…coz Google also goes on and on and on. It runs into pages and pages of the papers he has published and the workshops he has attended. I mean who does so many things within less than 32 years of their life!! But at this point I’m simple tired of singing his praises. And again, I chose to ignore him and his unending saga of achievements. Big deal!!
But it wasn’t for me to forget the triumph stories of this fellow worker. On one of those terrible Mondays, when every little cell of your body revolts and refuses to let you go to work and you have to use all your will power to drag yourself to your work station…here he was, smiling an ebullient “good morning” to me right in front of my desktop!! My first assumption was he has invaded my job and I’d been replaced by this infuriatingly talented man. Fortunately, I was still on my company’s payroll but unfortunately I was to sit right in front of Dr. Manirban Audi!!! Talk of bad Mondays…
To add to my already vast knowledge, I learnt that this mutineer was simply not content in his world of molecular dynamics simulations and has also ventured into the mortal world of the kitchen!!! He has converted several feathered friends into curry or has roasted them successfully often. He doesn’t let the Pisceans rest in peace in their waters either and makes it a point to fry some of them on weekends. I’m not even considering the chole-bhature, french toasts and several other deviations with which he can mutilate a bird’s egg for culinary purposes.
Gradually, I learnt to cleverly evade acquaintance with his other hobbles like theater, clubbing and his skills at hitting the dance floor. My attempts were minutely short-lived. Again one day, he breezed up to me with (wait this is new) a QUESTION… of where he could go shopping in Bangalore. Mr. Know-all-done-all was actually unaware of something that, I knew! But he ruined my brief moment of genius by telling me how he can patiently shop upto 8 hours with women without getting bored!!! Now which human male on earth has that kind of patience??? To add fuel to the fire (I was mentally comparing his patience level with my husband’s during our yearly shopping trips) he went on prattling about how he loves gossiping, movies, chatting for hours together at Café Coffee Day blah blah blah blah….!
It was at that moment that I realized why this immensely (read “too-good-to-be-true”) gentleman irritated me so much. And Eureka! I knew my answer in that one jiffy! THE RAINBOW IN THE SUMMER WAS OUT!!!!
He was so talented, well- mannered, down-to-earth, not that bad-looking, eternally cheerful and happy! In short he was an eligible bachelor! That explained those smiles and effervescent joy. And there is only one cure for such an ailment. Marriage!!!! Yes. That has to be it.
And with everyone’s (I discovered that I wasn’t alone afterall) common concurrence, we have secretly set out to hunt a girl for him AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Anyone interested in a tall, dark, close-to handsome, highly placed or salaried, Bengali guy, who….
Ah well, here I go again….
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