"BEHIND" THE STORY...

I never go to the temple wearing pants or jeans but always
wear the traditional 'mundu' and wear no shirt either. It is
not that you are not allowed to don the shirt, but to enter
the sanctum sanctorum, you have to be shirtless and no
vest or shawl over or around your torso is allowed either.
Simply put, the 'mundu' is just long white sheet of fine cloth
which you wrap around your waist and hope it will stay there.

I have seen people wearing 'mundu' and do all sorts of things
like run around, jump, climb up trees and no matter what
they do, the mundu stays wrapped to the waist. And I....all
I have to do is say 'jack' loudly and the mundu falls down to
my feet, leaving my "you-know-where" exposed to the
weather and other elements, not to mention becoming the
butt of jokes. It is not everyday that someone shows off
his butt in such a carefree manner to anyone and Iam no
Jayabharathi or Sheela [ the famous film actors] to be
endowed and gifted with ..er..you-know-what and so people
do not take to it very kindly if they suddenly find me clad
only in something that covers barely 1/100 th of my physical
presence. And this is one of those times when the brand
name of the piece of cloth with an elastic bandage does not
impress anyone either.

Needless to say, Iam always alert to this danger of my
mundu falling off, whether it be at the temple or at home,
where I wear my dhoti, a very colourful version of the
mundu. To think I have worn mundu almost all my life,
since the time I was about fourteen or fifteen years old...

In public and at the temple, my movements are therefore
conducted very gently, with no sudden or jerking movements,
as though Iam playing everything in slow motion. Whatever
I do, one of my hands stay around the waist line....just in
case....The only time both hands come up together is when
I bow before God with folded hands. That is a very tense
moment for me, what with so many women and men standing
in front and behind me, I could cut up a very silly figure if ,
all of a sudden, women open up their eyes to look at God and
find me standing before them wearing something that could
embarass the living daylights out of the Deity himself.

This incident happened a few years back, during which time,
I was the treasurer of the Temple festival committee. It
required me to visit every single house in the neighbourhood
to ask for donations for the temple festival and something
that requires me to walk a lot. Yes, ofcourse, I wear a mundu
then, because, everyone else with me wears it too.

"Venu, why do always walk with your left hand to the hips?
Does it hurt your hips to walk?"

"No, but it will, if I don't"

"What do you mean..it will if you don't?"

"It will hurt if I don't"

"That is what I asked you whether it will hurt if you don't
put your hands to the hips and you said no, it will hurt.
What does that mean ?"

It was very embarrassing even to explain it and so I let
it go at that. How could I bring myself to tell anyone
that I would end up looking like Arnold Shwarzenegger
in Conan The Barbarian, if I let go of my grip on the mundu?.

"You walk like Arnold Shwarzenegger in Conan The Barbarian
, with his hands to the hips, only he was not wearing a mundu
in the movie". Said one of my friends.

"Why don't you go in this house and I to the next house,
as there is only one young lady staying there. We can
finish our business faster that way."

The three of us parted ways to move into two houses
opposite to each other. It was one of those old houses
with lots of space at the front yard, tiled roofed and
with about seven or eight steps leading to the sit-out.
The sloping roof was so low at the verandha that your
head could hit the ceiling if you weren't careful.

The gate adorned a big white board which said "DOGS ON
GUARD. ENTER AT YOUR RISK". I leaned over the gate
to look for dogs and did not see any. So I pressed the calling
bell on the wall and waited for the dogs to rush up to the gate.

Still no sign of the dogs.

"Yuhoo...doggie..doggie" I wailed at the top of my voice, my
neck craning over the compound wall to guide and send all my
voice and noise into the house. No dogs.

I opened the gate gently. I explained earlier about my gentleness,
but now I was more gentle than I usually was, what with this
confounded terrible wind threatening to blow my mundu off
my hips and the fear of having to explode into a fast dash if the
dogs rushed at me, were playing in my mind. Again, no dogs
around.

Now I knew what this was all about. It was only a single young
working woman staying in the house who did not have the time
to look after dogs, but still put up the sign board about dogs just
so it would deter potential robbers and other intruders from
trying anything funny. I walked confidently into the house and
a long walk it was. I realized that if the dogs rushed at me now,
I would not make it to the gate. But I was reasonably sure there
were no dogs and pressed the calling bell at the door and this time
I pressed the bell a little too long.

The sound of the bell seemed like a bird, suffering from 'piles',
screeching in agony while attending to a call of nature. Worse
still, was the sound of dogs barking as they rushed to the front
door. Trembling with fear, I realized that I had not heard the
sound of the calling bell, at the gate, when I pressed it. It was
probably out of order, which was why the dogs did not come to
the gate. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw two huge
dobermann pinshers coming round the house, rushing towards
the verandha.

There was only one thing to do, reach up with my hands, hang
on to the wooden beam of the roof and swing my body up to the
roof. All these years of working out at the gym had physically
prepared me for such an eventuality..... I could raise my body
on my hands and raise my hips and legs too, to the level of my
head. I proceeded to do precisely that.

AND THEN IT HAPPENED. MY MUNDU WAS COMING
OFF FROM THE WAIST.

One of the dogs grabbed the mundu which had fallen on the
floor, tugged at it in a fit of anger and ran away with it while
the other dog tried to jump up and bite my plump ..er..cheeks.
I pulled myself higher and stretched my legs as high as possible.
Then the dog thought it would be better if he could jump up
and grab my shirt, which was flailing high because of the wind.

THAT WAS WHEN THE NEXT WORST THING HAPPENED.

I looked like I was wearing no shirt and my mundu had become a
thousand small handkerchiefs [thanks to the dog] and my legs
were raised, spread and pointed to the front door. The door
opened and a beautiful woman stepped out into the verandha.

She took one long deep look at me, so long it took that I almost
asked. "Hey babe, you never seen a naked human being before?".

Now I wasn't exactly a bad looking sort. I have had people tell
me many a times that I looked like Jean Claude Vadamme and
there were some incidents that happened which made me think
that perhaps I was something of a "sex object" too. I mean,
what else do you make of it, when women object when you talk
about sex to them? But she seemed to ignore all those finer points.

She screamed at the top of her voice which made me release my
grip from the roof. I landed heavily on the dog's head, which was
on its way up and needless to say, it received quite a jolting butt
on the nose. Yelping loudly, the dog disappeared into the
backyard of the house. I jumped up in an instant and ran into
the house through the open door, followed by the lady screaming
more loudly than she did previously. I hope you realize why I
did not run out of the house and compound, but ran inside. In
case you haven't guessed.... you don't walk on the streets wearing
almost nothing and also the other dog was still ferociously
attacking my mundu.

The whole commotion had attracted the attention of my friends
who had gone into the neighbour's house and they came out, to
see me run into the house with the lady.

"Boy, this guy sure is a fast worker. Five minutes back, he
did not even know this lady in that house and now he is
rushing to the bedroom and can't even wait until he reached
the bed room to take his clothes off".

What happened inside the house and the version my friends
give are very different. I had a tough time explaining to her
why I looked like what I did and finally when I came out of
the house, I was wearing her nightie, which was all she could
give me. She stayed alone and there were no shirts or T shirts
or jeans that would fit my size. My friends gaped at me with
open mouths, their eyes glittering with admiration as I walked
out of the house, with a woman who looked very amused and
was still chuckling [ after she heard my story]. In their eyes,
she looked very happy and smiling with contentment and they
spread this story that I, in a hurry to meet my friends before
they finished their business in the other house, I mistook and
wore her nightie on my way out of the house.

I still wear mundu to the temple and weddings, but with an
added aid to help bolster mundu securely around the waist.
A small thin tough white thread.

"Always tie this thread over the mundu and around your waist.
No one will notice it. It may also come in handy if such an incident
happens again in your life." She told me.

"In what other way can this thread be useful?"

"If something like this happens ever again, you can use
this thread to hang yourself. I wouldn't be surprised if
it happened again".