The One and a Half Shirt

It is not every day that you see Ramesh wear something new for college. In fact, nobody in the village had remembered what Ramesh used to wear all this time, because nobody needed to. There he was on a fine Monday morning wearing a black shirt with large white and grey checks. Everyone from the village damsels to the old men discussing issues of global importance took a second from their important lives to see what Ramesh was wearing. Ramesh was naturally quite unnerved by all this attention. He gave vague and awkward smiles to people he had barely noticed in his 20 years of existence. The bus to town was already ten minutes late, but people were so engrossed in Ramesh's new shirt to even bother. Ramesh started cursing time looking at his watch, he felt he could have finished the entire national anthem by the time the lazy second hand moved once. Strangely, Ramesh found a solution to his embarrassing problem, he started to look down and ignore the people. He remembered his friend Roopesh telling him the day before to imagine all the people who embarrassed him as non-existent. Ramesh had pondered deeply and asked Roopesh, "So, I should think that all the others are dead?" Roopesh shook his head, "No, imagine they are non-existent. They do not exist." Ramesh was dumbfounded with Roopesh's logic, "I know these people exist, but I should pretend that they do not. Isn't that the same as considering them as dead?" Roopesh was a tough bloke with short temper and started to bawl, "Non-existent! You nincompoop! Not dead! Unless you plan to kill the entire society, then you are mad." Ramesh asked again, just to make sure, "Not dead, but non-existent when they exist?" Fumes came out as Roopesh controlled his rage, "Well, that wasn't rocket science, was it?" Ramesh wanted to ask why Roopesh would imagine that he wanted to kill the entire society, but chose not to. The college principal was still recovering at the hospital from Roopesh's gentle hug on winning the student body elections. No elections in the history of the college had been so hardly fought at all. Roopesh was elected the student president, and Ramesh the unenviable position of the entry point access manager. In this coveted job, Ramesh had to ogle diligently at the student members as they made their way to the meeting room. It was precisely for this reason Ramesh had got his new shirt stitched. At 400 rupees a metre and the satin finesse of the cloth made Ramesh fall in love with it. He had enough money to buy cloth for exactly 1 1/2 shirt, and so he did. He bought material for exactly one and a half shirt. He had planned to take the cloth to the tailor in the town to get it stitched. Roopesh had told him the tailor used to stitch for movie stars and politicians. An aspiring film star politician, he thought, must therefore accept that no other tailor existed. But, his dreams were dashed when his loving mother took it to her sister-in-law's niece's friend who had just diversified from household duties in to tailoring. She got a huge discount on the introductory offer, something, his mother Chintamani was not going to give up on. Ramesh brooded over it for a month, not eating or sleeping cursing his bad luck to keep the cloth on the table. And on that fine Monday morning he was wearing it. There was pride with guilt, joy with embarrassment, ecstasy with introversion, Ramesh wanted to be famous but was afraid of it. His moment of fame was interrupted by a running Roopesh. Ramesh knew that a running Roopesh was

more dangerous than hugging Roopesh. This realization made Ramesh to seek friendship with Roopesh to the dismay of his comrades. Roopesh almost collided with an old man, but his helmet most certainly did. The old man was answering a call of nature on the wall when the oval projectile hit him on his head. He fell into the ditch between the road and the wall almost instantly, so fast that neither the villagers nor Roopesh noticed that a man was down. Roopesh was a mad panting Doberman by the time he reached Ramesh. He rested his arms on Ramesh's shoulder and enquired in between the sighs, "What are you wearing?" Ramesh tried shrugging off the question, "Nothing..." while looking at his watch praying to God that the bus arrives. Roopesh wasn't satisfied, he took Ramesh by his collar and asked again, "You are wearing nothing? This is a goddamn shirt! And a beautiful one. My God! It just ain't my size, else I would have taken it." Roopesh's collar grabbing act was not missed by a single soul near the area. Though, they were relieved to see that he was in a good spirit. Ramesh let out a huge sigh of relief for a complement from Roopesh made his day or his life, all his embarrassments vanished. He looked up and pointed to Roopesh's helmet and asked about it. Roopesh rolled his eyes and said, "My bike wouldn't just start. One of those days when the stars are not on your side. Seems like I have take the bus like you and so many other unfortunate souls." Rajappan's tea shop was the only prosperous commercial establishment in the village. It was more of an institution where imaginary wars were fought and debates won. The tea shop was abound with activity although the shop only sold coffee and Paan. Tea was in short supply due to global hoarding according to the leading economist in the area, the Hindi professor at Ramesh's college. The tea/coffee seller was briskly reheating a day old coffee to serve piping hot coffee to his loyal customers. Ramesh looked at the shop for a few minutes to see whether there was anything to buy. He never liked Coffee, it didn't have the sting that arrack, rum or whiskey had. That is when his eyes fell on the yellow garland of Shambu Paan Masala. He almost bought it were it not for his drunken father who appeared out of nowhere. Drunk or not, his father did not hesitate to beat some morality into his children. The awkwardness of this moment was broken by the welcome sight of the bus. Even before the bus came to a stop people had starting disembarking which meant God had to make sure that they were not injured for their own stupidity. Roopesh and Ramesh barged their way into the bus and got a side seat. The tea shop was deserted except for Ramesh's father, the tea shop owner and a third man with a thick moustache. The bus was almost full in no time, and in the same amount of time a brawl at the tea shop serving coffee started. The third man with the thick moustache gave a whack on the left cheek of Ramesh's father and then on the right. Ramesh almost got up from his seat but remembered all the morality he had been bestowed by his father with a belt. His father started oscillating from left to right much like the overloaded bus on a road blessed with potholes and caves. Ramesh's father reached for the tip of his lungi and tried to fold it, but the constant abuses that he was raining on the third man meant the man was getting ready for his third and probably his most majestic shot. His father's survival instinct kicked in, and he lifted his lungi and lunged forth at the third man with the thick moustache. There, unmistakably for everyone was a portion of the shirt Ramesh was wearing but under the lungi. The curious case of the shirt being on two bodies at the same time baffled many.

The black with white and grey stripes were not something the village was going to forget in a lifetime. Ramesh had given it massive publicity, words of praise from Roopesh also helped the cause. Almost everyone was in shock, a few were left pondering whether Ramesh or his father had a better fashion sense. Ramesh was absolutely sure that his father got his half shirt out of the one and a half he had bought. His rage was only tempered by his shame, and before the bus could start, he jumped out and ran to his house. It is said that there were two funerals that were held in the village. The first was for an old man who was struck by an unforeseen power for answering the nature's call on someone else's wall. The second was for the most impeccable piece of fabric the entire village had seen. Some even say that Ramesh left the village unable to live in shame of the incident. Since then, the bus stop was renamed as 'Checker Shirt Junction' and the tea shop that sold coffee closed down due to competition from a tea shop that sold better coffee. Ramesh now avoid people as he considers them as non-existent, a trick that his P.A. Roopesh told the beloved Home Minister once.

Panicker Harishanker