A Tale

This is a tale.

Someone who knew me (I don’t have many friends) called me a few weeks ago and asked me to do something to help her at work. I buffed up the Rather-Musty-Slightly-Moth-Ridden-and-Not-So-Shiny-Any-More Armour and gave my word. I was called to meet the Power That Was on the show, so I landed up bright and squeaky at the office. This turned out to be Naomi Datta. She’s thin, pretty, slightly mongoloid from some angles, earnest, sensibly dressed and ornamented with a bright smile.

She breezed into the tiny conference room, already overflowing from too much of Me, looked at me and pronounced, “So you’re the one who’s as funny as me?”

I was aghast. “I don’t think we know each other well enough for you to say things like that about my face”, I said coldly.

A grin peeped out from corner of her face, unsure whether to make a run for it across her face or wait for clearer coasts.

I decided to show her how it’s done. If my smile had been wider the top of my head would’ve fallen off. “But I do think your face is way funnier than mine, you know”.

This time the grin decided to risk all and took off onto the slightly line at the corner of her mouth. It reached about a third of the way before it saw that the other side was a long way off, braked and wheeled around in the same motion, called itself a bloody quitter, wheeled back and took off back the way it was going, eventually caroming off the other corner up to her eyes and the crow’s feet on the side.

We had a nice enough meeting where she figured I was good enough to help them. She admonished me to buy her book and even threw a sharp-edged url at me for her book at Flipkart.com (go ahead, there’s the link right there, go buy the book, I dare you, I double dare you). It brooked no vacillation and I forthwith toodled over and bought the book.

It looked like a piece of fluffy chick-lit, so I passed it on to a friend who is an obsessive reviewer and roams the bylanes of Yari Road looking for unsuspecting books, movies, plays, TV shows, sports matches and life-in-general to wag a finger at and tell off. He took the book on an office trip to Saudi Arabia, belatedly understood that the cover could have him emasculated, kept it firmly ensconced. He tried reading it on the flight back, came home, slammed the book on the table and questioned my ancestry. He hadn’t got past chapter 2.

So I decided to rush in where fools feared to tread and started reading. The result was this review.

Many moons later, I had a meeting at the same office where Ms Datta runs her personal fiefdom from a tiny cubicle that, I sure hope, is larger on the inside. I had brought the offending book and the bill from Flipkart, and, on spotting her, strode over, slammed the book on her table, slammed the bill on top of it and asked for my money back.

She looked slightly bemused. “You hated it?”

The irresolute smile waved hello, surreptitiously. “I wouldn’t use that same adjective but…” The ellipsis dangled over the atmosphere like the Sword of Damocles.

She decided not to mind. And that’s when I was really impressed. This dame had no airs, no teary blinking or “I just need a moment” or looking at me like I’d been floating in the water for a week. She merely told me the book was in reprint, it was a bestseller, she’s got lots of good reviews and “some bad ones”. We then sat down and had a general chat of cabbages and kings and whether pigs have wings.

It was nice to come across someone who had evolved more than the average bear, who was self-confident enough to laugh at herself, who keeps a stiff upper lip under unexpected stress, who takes on boors and makes them feel a little silly. I haven’t met many people who have that groundedness. Reminded me of one of my favourite English teachers – he used Shakespeare to make people laugh.

So all power to the Datta. She may have written a book I didn’t like, but she’s all right. Decent energies. I just hope she writes books I do like. ‘cos the review stands.