The Cycling Date
This is about someone who has one of the sexiest voice, amazing charisma, looks dashing, compassionate, is an artist, creative, performs in theater, is a singer and kind of an all rounder. I’m going to be referring him as ‘SJ’.
He is a colleague of mine who used to work in the same team as my best friend. Used to walk through a corridor as soon as I stepped into the office and one day, heard this amazing voice and I had to stop for a second and turn to see who it was; and there he was standing, an absolute gentleman one could perceive. Based on the seating arrangement, I knew he worked in the same team as my bestie, however, did not know much about him. But as time flows, we eventually began talking mostly because of the minion I talked about in the previous story. I slowly began to know a little more about him and as most people who are passionate in general, while he invested a lot of time in work, his involvement in theater and music took much of his remaining time he had. He used to be an RJ and I would have found it really difficult to let him go if I ran a radio company. Adding to this was his extremely long on tiring commute back home as he lived in one of the most beautiful or rather organized places in Chennai.
Around the month of March, after the first cycling ride, me and the minion, we convinced SJ to join us for a cycling ride on the ECR. We set the target as Muttukad Boat House and fortunately, SJ rented a top tier cycle and he kind of enjoyed the ride, sort of and that’s when as usual, we made a pact, we’ll do more of these rides and my imagination, as usual getting the better of me; came up with this scenario where SJ would cycle from his house and CJ (basically name given to me by SJ) would cycle from his house and both of us meet at a mid-point in the city and we, well okay I started referring to it as the cycling date.
Few days passed, then a few weeks and SJ being busy engaged with theater practice and the “cycling date” never happened. And eventually, in the month of June 8th, 2019; we finally got to see his 100th theater performance. It was a musical comedy, ‘Company’, produced by ‘The Ku Ku Company’. But the wait was worth every second. What an amazing show it was and my man did the lead role as he should and did a stunning job. The entire crew was amazing and his wife an amazing singer had also directed the music and almost everything fell in place seamlessly. The a few more days and a few more months had passed. The plan never converted into action. However, we always had conversations around this. Even minion had left the organization and there were so many changes happening. Amidst all this busy life SJ had started cycling some decent distance to catch a metro to work, participate in marathons, do a book recording and what not; like I mentioned, kind of an all-rounder.
But my patience had run out, and we finally sat one day and decided, we shall wait no more. We blocked a weekend on our calendars, charted our routes on the map and decided we’ll meet in front of “Narada Gana Sabha” at Alwarpet, which was a very decent mid-point. I consider Alwarpet as an area where posh meets tradition & culture and I probably must attribute it to the influence of Mylapore (specifically the Mamas and Mamis in that area); please don’t contest, this is just my personal opinion. So, anyway, what better spot as a landmark.
Finally, in the month of October, the day had arrived, a month when Chennai gets some share of rain water at unpredictable times. It had rained very heavily that morning and was still drizzling but we didn’t want to let this opportunity go. Both of us started around 5.30 am in the morning and we took a decent 45 minutes to reach the destination. There I saw SJ had already reached a few minutes earlier and was waiting on the side walk. Stunning and macho as ever with his chest pumped up and holding the cycle in one hand and a water sipper in his other hand and uttered “Hi da…!!!” with his mesmerizing voice. That’s when I had that sense of satisfaction of having completed this planned event successfully.
We then found a coffee shop nearby, had some coffee, clicked two photos for the record and memory, spent a few minutes talking and bid adieu to each other to reach back home before the sun rose and the traffic density increased making it dangerous for the cyclists.
Thus, our first “cycling date” as I refer to, had finally been completed. I do remember sleeping well that day.
Turns out executing plans is sometimes difficult, especially when you take work, priorities, hobbies, duty calls etc. into the equation. We only went cycling one other time after that, by registering for an event in the month of November along with one other good friend of ours. We are yet to execute another plan. Hopefully, it will happen soon, once all this quarantine is over and people get back on track. Even during this quarantine, SJ entertains and drains people of their sorrows with his charm and voice with his amazing Instagram and Facebook Live sessions; where both SJ and his wife, play the piano and sing a few classic pieces. He also has a squad with whom he performs parody and if you are reading this you might want to check out Beef Sappad Trio.
Wishing the best for the future thought leader in all spheres of life…!!!
