Indian Samurai इंडियन सामुराई

 A story that still makes me laugh…

We all have this ball-breaking customer. The one that always nit-picks, who calls ten times a day but that you can not send to hell because 1. he is a customer and 2. he is a good customer.

But anyhow, every time you go see him, you need to get ready to have your brain chewed for one hour… Call me a masochist, but I go there every month. 

He is about sixty years and ninety kilos.

Last time, when my colleague saw him arriving from far, he whispered “here comes the elephant” (he REALLY is a ball-breaker!).

And there followed a crazy dialogue:

- Me: Hello Sir, how are you?

- He (with a great smile): “Ah? you think so??

- Me: ?????

- He: “Yes, perhaps you are right, maybe I have reduced!”  

- Me (starting to understand that he heard me commenting on his weight): “Ah ben yes of course, it is quite visible!”

  That put the guy in the best of moods for the whole meeting!

 We spent the following hour listening to all his grievances and my colleague concluded: “he was in a good mood today” (when he is in a bad mood, you listen to the same complaints but you feel like murdering someone when you get out!).

  This is huge!! I should use this trick again…

 I rarely speak about my job but I really like this story… So there it is…

I went to visit to a customer last week who happens to be a pharmacist. A disgusting person to look at. He chews paan continuously (a mixture of betel leef, arequa nut and tobacco) so when he speaks to you, inevitably it is with his mouth full. If it was only that… It overflows from everywhere, he always has some paan juice at the corners of his mouth…

I even marked the red spat of paan I received on my notebook…Really gross.

Besides that he is quite a nice guy though a bit arrogant. He lengthily explained to me how to protect my warehouse from dust. To give more weight to his saying, he showed me my arms and told me “see the skin is dying and it won’t regenerate before two years (ouuuch!)”.

But he has the “magic cream” (I quote), a product “that is not available in India”. It is so good that it lies in a super dusty carton… He opens the tube and put some cream on the arm asking me to rub it and make it penetrate.

Full with good will, I rub. I rub. I rub. The cream/gel starts to make blue sticky balls which get stuck to my arm hairs (even if not so numerous). And they won’t go…

Not really conclusive my friend!! 

Well it’s better to laugh at it… Let’s talk business now!

Another first: first night out 'as a couple' for my favorite Indian and me. After five years...

Small flashback. Sunday, in the swimming pool of Neemrana fort palace:
- You are French (in French in the text)?
- Yes.
- You dance the tango?
- Euh
- You must come to our tangi meetings, twice a week!

Here is how my mother and I have met M., a very beautiful Indian lady in her sixties. Single, a daughter settled in the United States, managing a textile factory in Delhi, holidaying on the French riviera...

M. invites me the very next Tuesday for a small party on her terrace. I take on me and give up on an early night in my very comfy bed (and God knows how tired I am!): I have to go out and meet people. My favorite Indian supports me in this effort and agrees to come with me.

We arrive on a superb terrace in the fashionable district of Defence Colony. The guests arrive progressively. We get a 'feel young feeling' which is nice as our thirties are becoming dangerously close: the age average is very close to 60. My Indian has some success: There are three men for 20 women! Women who laugh when saying that the man of their life is their driver!!
Discussions of Indian desperate housewives: On such political woman. On the happiness of having a dog. On the Sunday mass with is celebrated in the church of the Vatican embassy. On the children who live in Singapore, in Australia. On the total fun of new forties (the sixties). On the zumba. On NGOs.
The whole thing with a music background: a guest has taken her guitar out and everyone sings in a good spirit!!

My Indian and I have ended up behind the bar. A place well indicated to break the ice and to get over the incongruity of the situation. And the ladies are enjoying their drinks!

A unique experience (one more). A dive in the middle of a society which I had no idea existed. And a lot of fun for my first 'outing' in Delhi!!