The new glasses

Few days back I bought myself a pair of slightly expensive Tom Ford prescription sunglasses.

Expensive, yes but I didn’t have to expend my entire purse; just a paltry change. The large chunk of finance driving it came through my medical insurance, which I believe was approved by an agent who was snoozing at work. My good fortune! Sadly for my colleagues and my wife too, who after finding about my luck tried theirs, only found out the hard way that mine was the last pair of sunglasses that the agency had sponsored.

Well, they all (including my wife) eventually settled for branded, yet regular prescription glasses after failing their mandatory approval process.

I for one was having a good time; a pretty good time sporting my new goggles, wearing it during my worksite visits and for my drive to work and back daily. Suddenly the hot and piercing sun under which I usually cringed had been pushed behind the clouds posited by Mr Tom Ford and this scorching desert was turning into a gloomy misty rain soaked locale that I had left behind back home. Life was suddenly becoming lazy and I loved it.

With the glasses on, I was brimming in confidence and through it I even found my forgotten sly mischievous smile, which I must confess, I did try on a few polished ones of the opposite sex driving alongside in their Lexus’s and BMWs. I am sure, the newly restored Nelson’s Triangle with the goggles on did ignite a few flames but, bad luck too revisited with marked accuracy and caused their acknowledgements to ricochet away from my Tiida on to many of my adversaries in their Lamborghinis and Ferraris. There are many of those in this country, I say.

The better half though, was not done with it yet. Call it her distress on losing out on a pair of new designer sunglasses or purely her detest at my new found flashiness, things were changing, and they were changing at a rapid pace, and at the place where I disliked any form of intrusion what so ever.  Steadily Mr Tom Ford had started creeping into and started interfering with our bedded life, descriptions of which I am barred to reveal here.

Like some wise old ass once said “With every boon, comes a bane”, misery started hitting me from my otherwise most cherished direction. Wearing my new goggles during our weekend noon walk at the park or even the short fifteen minute drive to the Hypermarket started to became cumbersome. Imagine this beautiful lady sitting right next to you and she keeps her sight busily engaged out of the window staring at the barren landscape whilst she should be focussed to you and humming “tere chehre se nazar nahi hatt ti” (“I can’t take my eyes off you”) from the 1976 bollywood flick Kabhi Kabhi.

Something had to be done, and it had to be done fast. But the question was – ‘How to appease your wife, who is missing an utterly costly piece of ornament?’

Mallu men (include most fraud ones too) are very okay with buying any amount of gold for their dear ones, but when it comes to something else, especially when it concerns something branded and  highly priced, we turn skimpy. Utterly skimpy, and I mean it. And there’s no doubt that I am a purebred mallu at it. The problem with us is that we look for returns or resale value in every big expense that we foresee. And that’s one reason why we don’t mind lavishing out on Japanese cars or gold or for that matter, even property. But ask a mallu man to buy a pair of designer goggles or any other such accessory for his wife, and he would come back asking “Athu veno?” (“Do you really need it?”). He might even add “Naatil poyitu ninakku njan city centerilinu nalla orannam vangichu theram” (I will buy you a good one from the City Centre when we visit Kerala next time”)

Anyways, what was the return or resale value in buying my wife a pair of powered Armani sunglasses? Well, with my limited intellect, I couldn’t see any. But yes, I could visualize a threat; a threat from those ‘bhooka bhediyas’ in the Lamborghinis and Ferraris. But then, anyone who knows me and my wife well, knows it for sure, that this was just a bogus threat. You know my wife is so utterly mesmerised and captivated by my persona, that I could be rest assured that nothing of that sort was ever going to happen.

However, as the days went by, new events were taking place. I don’t know if she concocted all this to bring me down to my knees, but I started finding bland tuna sandwiches in my lunchbox, got kicked out of the bedroom by my son, and had to cook my own breakfast on weekends. Something had to be done. But being ‘the man’ of the house, I couldn’t be the one to raise the white flag. I waited for the apt moment. And the moment arrived when it was Easter.

This Easter I emptied my purse and gifted her, her cherished Armani sunglasses. She was happy. And why wouldn’t she be, she actually got two new pairs of designer eyewear in a span of two weeks!

And what did I get (Beyond the empty purse, of course)? Well, believe it or not, since that day, I have been frequently finding Biryani in my lunchbox and eventually found my place in the bedroom (Kevin has been cajoled into believing that he is a big boy now, and should be sleeping alone in the bunk bed). What more? I also got served the most exclusive Pork Curry and Appam this Easter. What else does a man want?

Happy Easter… errr Happy Vishu to you all.