On the contrary: My town

The best part about living in a small town is that one is sufficiently secure about one's identity to not have to pull rank with that idiotic question, 'Do you know who I am?' However, there are certain exceptions to this rule. Take the case of a certain crotchety uncle of mine named Kuttu. Back then I was a minor cog in the wheels of the DCM industrial empire and as is customary with cogs, I was keen to distinguish myself from the other rodents in the race. Sycophancy only works up to a point, after which those resourceful enough to respond positively to, 'Don't bore me with your problems, find me a solution', are the ones destined to cuddle up with the bitch goddess: success.

The great minds in head office had zoned in on an obscure Mysore-based company for takeover and every eager beaver was scrambling to find out more about the object of our corporate passion. Inspiration struck yours truly: I had a head-start on the rest since Kuttu owned a factory located next door to our target. I button-holed my boss, pitched the idea and sat back with a satisfied smirk envisaging my role as Senior Assistant Divisional Manager with perks including a white Premier Padmini; dreams were fairly prosaic in the 80's.

Boss arrived in Mysore, phoned uncle and the conversation went something like this. 'Good evening Mr. Kuttu. I'm Ajit's colleague…this is regarding that factory'. 'Who is Ajit?' quoth mon uncle, I'm ashamed to admit. 'Er, well Ajit, your nephew, your relative," mumbled my increasingly flustered boss. Ultimately, to my lasting embarrassment, the penny dropped. 'Oh you mean Jithy, do you? What's he doing now?' Kuttu asked. 'Sir, he's in our granite export division,' volunteered the boss helpfully. 'Granite', snorted Kuttu, 'tell him to export his head. Okay I'll come and pick you up tomorrow. Make sure you promote the bugger, otherwise I'll have to give him a job and times are hard now,' he added darkly.

Mukesh, my erstwhile boss was pacing the lobby for a good thirty minutes past the appointed hour when Kuttu arrived in a cloud of dust. 'Good to see you on time, I hate it when people are late,' he said breezily, leaving Mukesh  too gobsmacked to reply. They took off in Kuttu's elderly Ambassador in another cloud of dust and uncle ran through the gear changes in the manner of an F1 driver. This caused no small amount of anxiety to my boss who gripped the door handle with a white-knuckled intensity that could have done his circulation no good. Progress was rapid until they came up behind another car which refused to allow them to overtake. Kuttu tried everything: he swore, he slammed the horn, he tail-gated the offender but nothing worked. Ultimately he caught up with the road hog at a roundabout, cut across the wrong side, rolled down his window and let rip with some truly inventive swearing.

Not being present on the occasion, I am relying on hearsay but apparently Kuttu's flow of invective ran the gamut from the toilet habits of a pig to the presence of a cockroach in the driver's ancestry. His final flourish was, "Where did you get your licence, you moron. In a bloody lottery?," before leaving the crime scene in a final cloud of dust. It was now the turn of the road hog who was in hot pursuit all the way to the factory and managed to run them off the road just before they reached their destination. The rear window was slowly rolled down to reveal a mustachioed, pan-chewing, uniformed figure. 'Aay, what you told, rascal? Licence in lottery, hah. You know who I am? I am Assistant Commissioner of Police. Produce your licence, I say'. Needless to say, Kuttu wasn't carrying his licence, not that it would have done much good, since as he subsequently discovered, the document in question had lapsed some six months earlier.

Poor Mukesh got out to beg, plead and grovel and finally had to resort to reminding the apoplectic officer of the fans and sewing machines supplied to the police department. Ultimately, the cringing worked and the odd couple was sullenly given permission to leave by the cop, with boss at the wheel this time. Kuttu leant back expansively, lit a cigarette and came up with this classic, "I say, what's-your-name, Mukesh? It's only because you were in a hurry that I let that fellow off. Mysore's my town, I say. He doesn't know who I am. I'd have settled his hash for him."

Ajit Saldanha has a finger in the pie, and another on the political pulse. And when he writes, he cooks up a storm