Pieces of the Puzzle

Latha Kamath was my classmate in school. Her dad owned a clothes store. No ordinary store this. This was the only ready-made clothes store in our village. Headless mannequins wearing colorful salwar suits, transparent dupattas neatly pinned to them forming a V at the front. From the ceiling hung more dresses, lacy & frilly. Inside a glass case, were plastic busts donned with bras. Sarees were tied to each other and decoratively dangled from the board up front which said "Kamath’s Garment Center" in big bold green letters.

We never bought any clothes from Kamath uncle. Our weekly 'city' trips would take care of our outfit purchases. I guess we didn’t think much of the little store. One day my mom decided to take me to Kamath uncle’s store to get me a bra! Don’t know why in the world she couldn’t wait to get to the city. After an arguement, I was dragged much to my chagrin & embarrassment. I didn’t want anyone knowing about this, especially the Kamath family.

Kamath uncle beams on seeing us enter the store.

"Hello Hello Madam! Come in, come in!"

This was my first experience in buying bras. My mom always took care of that awkward detail for me. I never had to be present…until this fateful day!

I have to tell you here that Kamath uncle has no assistants. No friggin lady assistants with whom you can confide your darkest secrets.

Pretty unfazed, my mom gets to the point and asks for the garment in question- "size-ab-c, please." (Admirable! She is used to this I guess).

Kamath uncle doesn’t waste any time," No Madam, I am sure you are not ab-c. You are bigger. You must be ef-g. I have the right one for you. Here." He pulls out a bunch of ef-g.

Yikes! Was I hearing this right? This man checked out my mom???!!!..and he is admitting it too!!?

Oh well, the torture doesn’t end there. My mom doesn’t pull me by the arm and drag me out of the store indignantly. She had the audacity (is what I called it then) to say that its for me and not for her.

I shriveled to the bottom-most shelf. Good Lord, take me! Don’t leave me to suffer like this!

Now he doesn’t just give the bloody ab-c. He has to check me out too!

"Oh sure sure! ab-c will be right. My Latha wears gh-i."

I was mortified! That does it!!!! None of us are ever coming here again! This guy takes his job too seriously.

I couldn’t wait for school the next day. I had to report this incident (later found it amusing) about Latha’s dad to all my girl friends. Every single one had undergone uncle Kamath’s scrutiny!