Smaller than Life

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

A Call from the Wild

This was a mail that I had written to the group last July about Dexter. It does not behoove me to introduce Dexter to you all thus. He can surely complete a grander entree for he belongs to a rarer breed of people - the academically brilliant lot. It is simply unfair. But so's life :)

Guys,

Dexter and Ms. Silhouette make quite a picture in front of Ram Bhawan – nobody needs to be told that. In fact, I can virtually count the occasions on my fingers when I have not chanced to find Dexter giving vent to his debonair ostentations with the object of his affections in front of the Ram Bhawan gate, ending up giving the Chowki a run for his wages.

They made a brilliant canvas for a caricaturist. Together.

This evening Dexter, Quixote, and I were doing some GRE exercises at Dexter’s when he received a seemingly innocuous telephone call. Initially, Quixote and I harboured no suspicions. But Dexter's first words into the receiver (and the response, more importantly) seemed to have left him stunned in a mixture of surprise and shock. And he jerked his idiosyncratic jerk. It startled me and for a moment I even dared to speculate, against my better senses, whether the receiver had given him an electric shock! His face slowly turned a bright crimson and finally purple. Yes, there was no doubt about it now; it was her on the line! Even as he was cooing into the receiver sweet nothings to his inamorata, he must have felt abashed all of a sudden; he rushed into one of the corners of the room hoping that the conversation would escape our earshot. The ostrich, when attacked by poachers, slides its head alone into the bushes while exposing the rest of it, cosy in the thought that it has escaped the hunters’ eyes and oblivious to the imminent. Dexter’s fate seemed to be much the same. There he was, twiddling his thumbs (literally!) and scratching intricate designs on the ground with his toes, much the same way the bashful brides of Tamil Cinemas do when they descry the gaily bedecked groom and entourage on squadrons of elephants (unable to tell apart from the groom!)! It was quite a sight, seeing him caught between the pangs of not being able to pour his heart out and having to contend with two inane jackasses having a ball at his discomfiture. It was after some ribbing, after the receiver had been duly placed back, that he finally capitulated and admitted the identity of the caller, and wistfully whined that such occasions were rare. I must admit that I did feel sorry for him then, for three full seconds.

Well, I wonder why the calls should be rare, given the recent proliferation of gate-calls last semester. Probably she feels obliged to call Berr too when she calls Dexter, for they are three of a much vaunted trio! I can quite understand her predicament. Dexter alone is enough to give one a splitting headache; she has to contend with two of the same feather. Well, so it is probably fathomable that she thinks twice before calling; she has to call twice! Dexter presented quite a picture today; over the moon because she had called and flabbergasted because there were two goons laughing and eating his head off. But one thing that I shall avow with conviction about Dexter conversing with Ms. Silhouette over the phone:

He makes a brilliant caricature. Alone!

Yours,
Me.

- posted by Dileepan @ 8:51:00 pm

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