The thunder thief

Not many people would have had the experience of pouring sambar into a katori under the watchful eyes of a Chinese lady who speaks fluent tamil, and who had also made the sambar, by the way.

So I've started volunteering in the kitchen of the restaurant owned by the Temple of Fine Arts. The restaurant is run by volunteers who do most of the chores like cooking and serving the food. I've always wanted to volunteer there (being a firm believer of the notion that cooking and serving food to others are amongst the noblest things one can do) but I firmed up the details only after Viv and I held a post-wedding party for our close friends at that restaurant. The organisers had done an amazing job with the decor at the party and even had the two customary chairs which are so mandatory at Indian wedding receptions. And not to mention my favourite flowers - pink gerberas!

At the party, we had done a slideshow for our guests, mainly to showcase what our 'south Indian-north Indian' mix wedding was like. After the party, we got several emails, including one from the event manager, telling us that they found the slideshow really funny. I still remember the slide that got the most laughs. Many relatives, upon finding out that I was marrying a south Indian had called to ask me what Viv looked like. To make things interesting, I'd told 'em gasping relatives that he looked like South Indian superstar Mammootty. No offence to Mammootty, but aforementioned relatives were very relieved when they finally saw Viv. I told this story at the party and even had a Mammootty vs. Viv comparison slide. I guess everyone at the restaurant remembered that because on the first day of my volunteering, I was introduced to each of the other volunteers as "the girl who had her wedding party and the funny slideshow here last month".

Anyway, today they needed help for a catering event for 500 people, and my mom-in-law and I pitched in. We had almost finished preparing 500 pieces of banana leaves, when the event manager came up to me, smiled and said, "Sayesha, there's a new volunteer and I want you to help him settle down." I turned around and the "new volunteer" turned out to be the man Viv himself! He had a meeting in the morning, but I'd asked him to join us if he finished early.

We were put in charge of preparing two trays of mithai. Both of us put some amazing teamwork and our geeky engineer-brains to work in order to calculate how we could best arrange the three different kinds of mithai into a pattern using two trays in a way that all of it was used up. We made a futile attempt to make the others understand our precise use of mathematics in the mithai arrangement, but they kinda just gave up and we were left to do our 'exciting calculations'.

After the mithai was done, the tamil-speaking Chinese sambar-lady put Viv in charge of making the coconut chutney. Under her watchful eye, of course. Viv made a ridiculous amount of chutney - the container itself was the kind from which buffaloes drink water! It was hilarious to see him make the chutney in the funny mixer that did not have a lid so he had to keep his hand on top, and every time he opened the mixer, bits of chutney went flying in all directions. I put on an apron for him, to protect him from the flying chutney. But he still managed to get drops of the pakora batter (pakora man was standing right behind Viv) neatly deposited in the form of yellow dots amidst the blue dots on his white shirt. After a while, sambar-lady left Viv to handle the chutney all by himself. Sheesh! This guy just walks in and wins everyone over! I suspected that she trusted his chutney-making skills more than she trusted my sambar-pouring skills! Hmmmph! Ok fine I admit it, I was beginning to get really jealous.

And then there was the guy who renamed me. One of the volunteers was this really young chap. He approached me hesitantly.

"Errr...." he said to me, and paused, as if trying to place where he knew me from.

"Yes?" I asked.

"Uhhh...."

I was getting a bit tired of smiling politely and waiting for his memory to revert to him, when he got it.

"Oh yeah! Now I remember! You're the south-meets-north slideshow girl!"

"Huh? I'm the what?"

"The south-meets-north slideshow girl... your husband is Viv, right?"

"Ohh... er, yeah, that would be me." I said out aloud.

But in my head, I was saying something else.

What the...?! "Viv" you know! But "Sayesha" you don't! He has a name, but I don't? He is Viv, and I'm just random south-meets-north slideshow girl??? :/

"Sheesh, Viv... you steal my thunder one more time and..." My thoughts were interrupted by another introduction session.

"This is Sayesha, she and her husband Viv had their wedding party here last month, remember?"

"Oh yeah, I think Viv sent us a very nice 'Thank you' email after the event." came the reply.

Dubbal sheesh!

It was me who had sent the very nice 'Thank you' email after the event. Me, not Viv. Just like most people, I like to get my fair credit where it's due. And I especially can't tolerate anyone stealing my thunder. Argh.

Ah well. Just one more balidaan by bhartiya naari for pati parmeshwar. I'm used to it now. Well, almost. A cousin speaks to him for the first time on the phone for like ten minutes and declares that he likes Viv more than he likes me. Gee thanks. Bro, you choose random stranger over 26 years of cousin-ship? My folks are so proud of him because he can speak my language but I'm still struggling with his! But Tamil is a terribly terribly difficult language, but no one gives me credit for that! Waaaaaaaaaa! :'(

And not just in the real world! 2 years at the bar. 488 posts. 16692 comments. And this guy just saunters along and becomes the laadla of every bewda/bewdi at the bar! People message me on gtalk, "So when is Viv playing pictionary again?"

Bhai does the hard work, guy gets the bouquets.

Sigh.

I guess it's true then.

Behind every successful man is a random south-meets-north slideshow girl. :/