I have a trustworthy face
I recently made one of my now-too-frequent trips to the hospital, where the doc gave me her practiced severe look for not taking care of myself, and prescribed pills for gastritis. One of these pills turned out to contain bacteria, something I find slightly disgusting and very cool.
Damn. Five missed calls. And an sms: "Pl cd u call back? I just needed some information".
Unknown number. My curiosity piqued, I decided to return this call first.
"Hullo, this is Shrik."
"Hullo, this is Mrs _____. I wanted some information from you as a mother."
Interesting! "Sure", I said. This had all the makings of something that would make my day.
Mrs _____ continued that she was going through the profiles on bharatmatrimony.com for her daughter, and both of them were quite taken by this boy who's from my undergrad college. She searched around on the internet and found that I'm from that college too. "I looked at your alumni page, and felt I could trust you. So could you help me out?"
I was knee deep into this by now, and there was no way I could turn away from it. It looked very much like a crank call, but I had to investigate further. "Thanks, m'am, how can I help?"
"Do you know this boy? He's from your hostel, and plays a lot of sports. Seems to have graduated around your time, too."
"Well, can I have his name?"
It turned out (thankfully) that I didn't know the suspect. From my hostel? Yes, of course, isn't there only one hostel in your college? Er, no. There were about eleven when I graduated, and they've added a few more since, on a passing whim no doubt.
I cautiously asked Mrs _____ how she had come upon my personal cellphone number. Quite easy, really. She'd traced me to my company website, called up the contact number there, and wrangled the number out of my poor colleague who picked up the phone.
"Don't you feel, m'am, that you should call or meet this boy and speak with him, instead of trusting the words of a complete stranger?"
"It's my only daughter, you see. You'll understand when you have a daughter of your own."
With which homily, and the fact that I had a trusty face, I had to be content with the rest of the day.
Damn. Five missed calls. And an sms: "Pl cd u call back? I just needed some information".
Unknown number. My curiosity piqued, I decided to return this call first.
"Hullo, this is Shrik."
"Hullo, this is Mrs _____. I wanted some information from you as a mother."
Interesting! "Sure", I said. This had all the makings of something that would make my day.
Mrs _____ continued that she was going through the profiles on bharatmatrimony.com for her daughter, and both of them were quite taken by this boy who's from my undergrad college. She searched around on the internet and found that I'm from that college too. "I looked at your alumni page, and felt I could trust you. So could you help me out?"
I was knee deep into this by now, and there was no way I could turn away from it. It looked very much like a crank call, but I had to investigate further. "Thanks, m'am, how can I help?"
"Do you know this boy? He's from your hostel, and plays a lot of sports. Seems to have graduated around your time, too."
"Well, can I have his name?"
It turned out (thankfully) that I didn't know the suspect. From my hostel? Yes, of course, isn't there only one hostel in your college? Er, no. There were about eleven when I graduated, and they've added a few more since, on a passing whim no doubt.
I cautiously asked Mrs _____ how she had come upon my personal cellphone number. Quite easy, really. She'd traced me to my company website, called up the contact number there, and wrangled the number out of my poor colleague who picked up the phone.
"Don't you feel, m'am, that you should call or meet this boy and speak with him, instead of trusting the words of a complete stranger?"
"It's my only daughter, you see. You'll understand when you have a daughter of your own."
With which homily, and the fact that I had a trusty face, I had to be content with the rest of the day.
So bizzare!
ReplyDeleteThe whole "Mrs._____" reminds me of Edgar Allan Poe. Also Major __ de Coverley, to some extent.
ReplyDeleteSo what developments on the mystery?
Anurag: I agree. And coming so soon after we watched Crank, which was equally bizarre.
ReplyDeleteSenti: No developments. I considered making a counterattack involving a bevy of dejected girls who would call Mrs _____ and claim they knew the boy, but I was too lazy to put that in action.
This was tickling! 🤠Such scope for mischief in there!
ReplyDelete