two foot one mouth

I have no reservations about confessing that I suffer from verbal diarrhea. I tend to talk A LOT especially when the crowd is familiar to me. However, I am not one who just blabbers for the heck of it. As my wife puts it, when I listen to someone, most of the times my mind is framing what I am going to say next. Thanks to that, and my innate nature to not offend anyone, there are not many occasions where I have had my foot in my mouth.

But I am afraid off late I have been losing my 'charm' for twice within a week, I ended up blurting out stuffs which not just put my foot, but my whole leg in my mouth.

We were at a baby shower of one of our close acquaintances. Alone with our close circle of friends there were many others as well, most of them I have met before at one place or the other.

I met this fellow Malayali couple whom I knew from previous get-togethers; but with whom I have not chatted much to details. So, like how all “warming up to a person” conversations would go, amongst many other things, he was inquiring about my undergraduate college and I told him about the college.

“It’s in a town called Kothamangalam”, I told for his benefit since he had told me previously that he grew up and studied outside of Kerala.

“Of course I know Kothamangalam, that’s where Sreesanth is from, right?” He asked.

Now for those who do not know who S. Sreesanth is - just google his name. Even better, just search in YouTube and you will find the most entertaining videos available. Thanks to his antics (which I am annoyed with) and the match fixing allegations (which I do not believe), he was quite famous (or notorious) to all who follow cricket in India.

“Yeah, that’s correct…. and I am sorry about that”, I said with a sarcastic grin and a mouth full of food.

I was waiting for laughter or a chuckle from them, but all I got was a weak smile and an awkward silence for couple of seconds.

I noticed the husband and wife exchange glances and I had a bad feeling about it. And as I feared, the guy told embarrassed “Actually, he is a relative of ours”

It was at that exact moment I realized the flavor of my feet in my mouth. Thousands of Keralites in Texas and I find the one person who is related to him – perfect!

“Oops, well, then I am sorry about that” I tried to apologize.

“No no , it’s alright, I have been told worse things about him by many of my other friends”, now he was also trying to apologize to have put me in an awkward situation.

So for the next few minutes we were apologizing to each other.

“He is from his side of family. Don’t worry, actually even I think he is annoying”, the wife tried to pacify me.

“So, how are you both actually related?”, I asked so as to gauge the extent of damage caused and to decide if I should be avoiding for the rest if the day or the rest of the life.

“Well, not direct, my brother is married to his sister in law’s family” he said.

I had a sigh of relief – good; I can continue talking to him “Actually I don’t think he has actually fixed any games. Though I hate his antics on the field, I think he is a hot headed guy to fix a game and keep quiet about it”.

Side note: I truly believe that way too. I strongly think that Sreesanth has been framed in this whole match fixing saga since he is an easy target. Given how much he makes a fool of himself on the field, it wouldn't be hard to make people believe that he would do something this stupid, right?. But my argument is, despite of all his shenanigans, his passion for the game is evident and a person like that would not betray a game he loves.

“I have heard he has always been an annoying fellow”, the wife said.  “But yeah, he always has been dramatic to have done something like this”.

I was a relieved man and I thought it’s better to end this conversation before I goof up anything. So, I apologized again to them and move away get another plate of food.

Given how small the world has become thanks for migration and technology, the odds of meeting people related to people whom you have strong opinion about are quite high. It was a good reminder to study the audience before performing.

 Now the second incident was…..okay I am not going to detail it since it pretty much started off and proceeded the same way. However, this time managed to redeem myself as I cleverly diverted the offended person’s attention by narrating the above incident about confessing my recent proclivity of shooting myself in the foot and thus distracting the whole crowd. Crisis well averted.

AVS