I Finally Met The “Chair”Man

The air was bustling with activity in the otherwise dull atmosphere of St.Agnes College. More a jailkhana than a college in my opinion. Amruth, the first ever intercollegiate cultural fest by the college was being hosted and they gave the forlorn, thirsty girls, access to Amruth, Nectar, Boys. The events that were being held were enough to spew our interests.
Competing with fellow college mates, diligently booing female counterparts from other colleges and shamelessly flirting with the otherwise forbidden species, who’s setting foot on our campus was as rare as the appearance of the Haley’s Comet.
The events themselves had their own scale of popularity. The Variety Entertainment being the most sought after event and the Hindi Extempore, I guess one of the least. Dumb Charades, What’s the Good Word, Tom Dick & Harry and the like always brought together the silently witty, emphatically voracious, “person”ally strong lot.
I would glue myself to the dumb lot; dumb charades was where the action was. The whole gang would always be hovering around these literary events that were the most talked about.
And in my wildest dreams I never did think that I would go and watch the Hindi Extempore; and I didn’t.
No, I don’t have any aversion towards the national language, in fact I have very fruitlessly tried to master it, but the Hindi Extempore didn’t seem one bit enticing; given the fact that a select bunch of nerds from the college’s “Hindi Class” would be representing their colleges in this event.
Oh well, I then learnt how wrong I was. After an extremely fun filled session of “What’s the Good Word” there was a sudden buzz coming from the direction where the least popular event was held.
Students were out with a smile and some with stifled giggles. I was wondering why.
The buzz was that one student got just a single word for the extempore, “Kursi”, the Hindi word for Chair.
The ridiculous topic was the exact opposite as of its speaker. It seems the guy, eloquent and unruffled spoke about the “Kursi” as if it were specially ordered for him.
The whole audience was in splits and the “Chair”man managed to keep all of the audience amused and entertained throughout his allotted minute.
Undoubtedly he went on to win the first place.
The girls seemed floored by his wit and good looks. “Damn!” was the first thing that crossed my mind.
An opportunity lost to getting a glimpse of the usually rare, witty, humorous and good-looking guy.
But life goes on, there were definitely others to woo. But the “Chair”man kind of remained at the back of my head.
St.Agnes had never been dear to me. Leaving college didn’t leave me bleary eyed. Colleges changed after that and I did too.
And yes, there were always Amruth like events being held but this time we weren’t the ones who were starved. At each of these events I wondered if the “Chair”man would sit up. But no, he didn’t.
Years later the friends circle had grown. Reminiscing the good old college days on a lazy Sunday afternoon the topic invariably turned to Amruth, and I had to mention the “Chair”man and how everyone kept speaking of him, and how we never got to know who he was. And then my good old friend sits up and nonchalantly says, “That was me”.

PS: He is now my husband.
The title should’ve been “I Finally Married the Chairman”, but when I wrote this bit I had just met him.