Your Shirt is Nice (Humour) - S. L. Khutwad

If I were to keep a written account of how many people in my life I’ve complimented with the line, “Your shirt is nice, and it looks even better on you,” a hundred notebooks wouldn’t suffice. I’ve deployed this dialogue on countless occasions—sometimes casually, sometimes to suck up to my superiors, and sometimes when an argument was about to get physical. In most cases, it has worked to my advantage. The moment my boss wears a new shirt, you can be sure I’ll be in his cabin, delivering my line. I get this golden opportunity at least five or six times a year. My other colleagues only wish him on his birthday and then spend the rest of the year enduring his tirades with long faces. Not me. If the boss starts to scold me, I parry his attack with a simple, “That’s a nice shirt, sir.” I learned in my very first year of employment that these are not times to rely solely on birthday wishes. Frankly, if I had a way of knowing when my boss was wearing a new pair of underpants and a vest, I wouldn’t have hesitated to tell him, “Sir, your underpants are lovely, and they look even better on you.” However, I never imagined, not even in my wildest dreams, that such a simple compliment could land me in such deep trouble. To this day, when I recall that fateful day, I get goosebumps, and my own shirt becomes drenched in a cold sweat. A few days ago, I casually complimented the shirt of a distant friend, Anil. We ran into each other at a wedding. He appeared right in front of me, and for want of anything better to say, I remarked, “Nice shirt.” That was it. In response, he launched into an hour-long sermon on the shirt. From that moment on, the rest of my day, the entire night, and the dawn of the next morning were utterly wasted listening to praise for his shirts. At the wedding, bevies of beautiful women wafted past us, their laughter tinkling like wind chimes, their perfume making my head spin. I would close my eyes and try to inhale the fragrant air, but Anil, noticing my attention wavering, would grab me by the collar. “Go on, guess! How much do you think this shirt cost?” he would pester me with such inane questions, driving me to the brink of madness. My face would darken as the shadow of Anil’s sweaty shirt-story fell upon the glorious festival of feminine fragrances. “I have 42 shirts of this type. I don’t touch anything that isn’t branded,” Anil informed me. Now, whether he had 42 branded shirts of the same type or a hundred, I couldn’t have cared less. It made no difference to me if he wore a branded shirt or just walked around in a vest. The truth is, I wasn’t listening to him at all. The clatter of plates, bowls, and spoons from the dining hall and the aromatic scent of a lavish feast were making me restless. On top of that, Anil’s shirt-epic was torturing me. I was desperate to escape his clutches and launch an all-out assault on the buffet. “Pramod, I’m telling you this as a friend. I love my shirts more than I love my wife,” he said, diving right back into his narrative. “I only shop at Dorabji’s in Camp. No matter how expensive a shirt is, if I like it, I buy it. I’ll even take out a loan if I have to, but I won’t leave without the shirt. Some people, you know, buy their clothes off the street but strut around as if they’ve shopped abroad,” he said, glancing at my clothes. He looked at my shirt with the same contempt one reserves for a dead rat. “The kind of shirt you’re wearing is used as a floor-mopping rag in my house. You should learn to wear branded clothes! But then again, what’s the point of explaining the taste of jaggery to a donkey?” I couldn’t understand why this man was stripping me of my dignity. His words made my spirit sink. What crime had I committed to deserve this? He needled me about my shopping habits for what felt like an eternity. I doubt anyone wrings out clothes so thoroughly after washing them. “Last month, I was in America. Some people go abroad and immediately start looking for pubs and bars. Me? I look for clothing stores. I bought fifteen branded shirts in America. How many? Fifteen! And that too, in one go.” Just two minutes ago, this man was telling me he shopped nowhere but at Dorabji’s in Camp, and now he was playing a recording of his American shopping spree. I wondered. “Wow! So beautiful!” I exclaimed, looking at a stunning woman who was walking past us. But Anil, assuming the compliment was for him, ignited like a firecracker. All I could hear was the crackling sound of his voice. “Pramod, believe me. I have twenty wardrobes full of clothes. I can tell the price and quality of a shirt just by looking at it. I have 20 branded pink shirts. Fifteen navy blue shirts. Twenty-one white shirts. And mind you, each one costs at least four to five thousand rupees, okay?” I nodded along. Listening to the types of shirts and their prices, I felt as if I had wandered into a betting den. Occasionally, I would glance around and mutter, “Wow! Nice,” and Anil, thinking I was appreciating his monologue, would continue to gush like a waterfall. I felt like Abhimanyu trapped in the Kurukshetra war, with no clue how to get out. Just then, I saw that the wedding ceremony was over and the first batch of guests was being seated for dinner. I was relieved. It was my only escape route. I hastily got up to leave, but he grabbed my arm. “My house is right next door. Come on, let’s go,” he insisted. Leaving this magnificent feast to go to his house was like Aishwarya Rai wanting to feed me with her own hands, and me refusing on the grounds that I was fasting. “No, not today. I have to eat and go home right after,” I said, trying to move towards the dining hall. He held on to my arm. “What, have you come from a famine-stricken land? Do you never get to eat? Come to my house. You’ll learn all about shirts from around the world.” I kept refusing, but he wouldn’t listen. A terrifying image of what I would have to endure at his house flashed before my eyes, but he was adamant. After a long-drawn-out battle of wills, he won. He herded me towards his house. I felt exactly like a goat being led to the slaughter by a butcher. Little did I know that once we got there, he would indeed run a knife across my throat, just like a butcher. When we arrived, he didn’t even offer me tea or water. “Come to the bedroom,” he ordered. “What?” I let out a faint squeak. It was a good thing we were friends. If I had been a young woman and he had said, “Come to the bedroom,” I shuddered to think of the scandal that would have ensued. “Why are you taking him to the bedroom as soon as he arrives?” his wife protested. But Anil seemed accustomed to this. He took me by the hand and led me into the bedroom. He began pulling out clothes from one wardrobe after another. “This is my wedding suit. Specially tailored in Mumbai.” This was followed by a half-hour running commentary on the suit. His narrative, which began with his own wedding suit, wasn’t going to end until it reached his son’s wedding suit. I was listening to the history of his life, from his wedding day to his son’s wedding. I was so exasperated that I could see the next morning peeking through the wardrobe doors. Anil opened another cupboard. “I wore this shirt for my son’s naming ceremony. It still smells of Johnson’s Baby Powder. I’m going to wear this one for my grandson’s naming ceremony too. The shirts I buy are very durable. There can be no better example than this.” “If you wear it only two or three times, it will surely last another hundred years,” I muttered under my breath. He pulled out another shirt. “This is the shirt I wore on my first day of work. I plan to wear the same shirt on my last day before retirement. After that, I will retire this shirt as well.” I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Then he pulled out another shirt. “I wore this shirt when I went to Mahabaleshwar for my honeymoon. It still has my wife’s lipstick stains on it. I haven’t even washed it, so the stains don’t fade. When I see this shirt, I remember our love. So many memories of Mahabaleshwar are woven into this shirt,” Anil said, his voice thick with emotion. He then opened the next wardrobe and pulled out two or three shirts. “These are from my America trip. Each shirt has its own visa and (pocket), you know?” He laughed loudly at his own pun. Since he wasn’t my boss and my salary wasn’t in his hands, I did not laugh at his pathetic joke. To stop him, I pleaded, “Okay, I’ll get going now. I’ll come back some other time.” “Trying to fool me? I know that a man who has seen my shirts once never comes back,” he said, turning to the next wardrobe. “The shirts in this wardrobe are only for office wear. Blue on Monday, grey on Tuesday, white on Wednesday, sky blue on Thursday… I have a fixed timetable for each day’s shirt. My colleagues can tell what day of the week it is just by looking at my shirt. See? You never know how my shirts can benefit someone,” Anil boasted. Then he opened another wardrobe. “This one has my party shirts,” he said, pulling one out. “I wore this shirt only once. It got a mushroom curry stain on it, so I retired it permanently. It’s a five-thousand-rupee shirt, but I wore it just once. I can’t tolerate stains, whether on my character or on my shirt. So, I sentenced this shirt to life imprisonment.” By now, I was convinced that Anil was a madman. Suddenly, he pointed to the top shelf of the cupboard. “Look, that’s my emergency collection! I use it to ‘gift’ a shirt to any friend who suddenly drops by. I gift a shirt from this collection to any friend who manages to see my entire stock without getting bored. So far, a hundred and fifty people have seen my stock, but I’ve only had the chance to gift one of them. So, there’s still a chance for you,” Anil tempted me. Then he started telling me about the special features of some of his shirts. “This is a Dispute Resolution Shirt. When I wear this, I don’t get into fights. You know how fights break out on the road over minor collisions? In such situations, when the other person is about to attack me, his eyes fall on my shirt, and he has a change of heart. He’ll say, ‘Hey, haven’t seen you in ages. Where have you been? Let’s get some tea,’ and he’ll put his arm around my shoulder and take me to a nearby hotel. I used to wear this shirt at home, but whenever my wife was in a fighting mood, she would see this shirt and start acting lovingly, which would frustrate her. After a month, she banned me from wearing it at home.” Then he showed me another shirt. “This is a Salary Increment Shirt. When I wear this, my boss gets an intense urge to give me a raise. But I can only wear this shirt once a year.” He showed me another one. “This is a Beautiful Woman Magnet Shirt. When you wear it, you get the company of beautiful women. They chat nicely with you, pamper you. But when my wife realized the power of this shirt, she took it from me, saying she would iron it. On the pretext of ironing, she burned the back of it. So I don't wear it anymore.” He went on, describing many more shirts and their benefits. I could only manage a noncommittal “Oh, really?” “Wow, that’s great!” but soon, I didn’t even have the strength for that. “I’m hungry. I’m going home,” I pleaded. “Hey, there are still two or three wardrobes left. One has only socks, and the other has ties. I’ll give you a brief history of each, and then we’ll have dinner. You can go home after that,” he said. Hearing this, I felt dizzy and fainted. He sprinkled water on my face to wake me up. “Feeling better now?” he asked. I forced a nod. “Okay, let’s skip the socks and ties for now. I’ll just show you my pajama collection,” he said, opening another wardrobe. “Look! This is my honeymoon pajama. It’s silk. Specially bought from Bangalore. There’s a funny story about this. On my wedding night, the drawstring wouldn’t open…” He kept talking, but I was just staring out the window. Then he pulled out another pajama. “This is my Diwali pajama. For Diwali, I have separate shirts, separate firecrackers, and separate pajamas. Look at this color—even if sparks from firecrackers fall on it, nothing happens. It’s a fire-proof pajama. I got it specially from London.” “Look at this one, this is my Sunday-only pajama. On Sundays, I get up and read the newspaper, and I must have this on. If I’m not wearing this pajama, I can’t read the paper. I can do without my glasses, but not without this pajama.” Then he pulled out a pink one. “This is the Valentine’s Day Pajama. I wear it when I go out on Valentine’s Day. It has pink hearts printed all over it. It’s designed to make anyone fall in love at first sight. On Valentine’s Day, I get at least fifty roses and as many Cadbury chocolates. This pajama is very lucky for me.” I thought to myself, Anil pulled out another one. “This is from my foreign trip. Bought it in a mall in America. It’s made of fabric used by NASA. When I sleep in it, I feel like I’m in space.” I thought, After he finished with that wardrobe, he started towards another one. “Now I’ll show you my Winter Special Pajamas,” he said. I casually looked at my watch. It was four in the morning. That was it. My patience had run out. After his Winter Special collection, he would probably start on the Underwear Special department. Listening to the history of each pair—where he bought it, its special features—the sun would rise before he was done. So, without a second thought, I bolted from his house. Anil ran after me, shouting, “Hey, wait, wait,” but I was gone. It was four in the morning, and seeing me running down the street, two policemen thought I was a thief. They chased me down, caught me, and brought me to the police station. I may be in a lockup now, but I am at peace. I feel safer here than at Anil’s house. My only fervent prayer to God is that Anil doesn’t come looking for me here. - S. L. Khutwad 9881099090 Renowned Humorous Writer and Journalist

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