THE MAN WITH THE BIG TURBAN

                                           

I heard my name.

Only my sweet old mother and perhaps a few of my earliest teachers called me that and in that are-you-OK-little-child tone.

I turned around slowly as if white cops were behind me and came face-to-face with the man with the big turban. I chose not to speak in case I gave too much away. I was perplexed but I was trying my hardest not to show it. I wasn’t going to ask him how he knew my name for I was certain his reply would freak me out even further.

“You are a very very lucky man. Many many women think about you". I was not too sure whether to laugh or cry. I maintained eye contact half-hoping that the eclectic gentleman will guffaw at his own joke. He didn’t.

I looked around half-expecting some of my friends to come out of the woodwork laughing their brainless heads off at this very late April Fool’s joke. They didn’t. I still composed myself, there could yet be Candid Camera somewhere.

“Sorry sir, I don’t mean any disrespect but I think you’ve got the wrong man.”

“YOU KNOW I’ve got the right man” he said, almost in a shout-whisper.

Besides the fact that I was very taken, it had been arguably the worst week of my relationship with my partner. It was a time when it was beyond impossible for us to agree on any issue apart from, well, maybe what day of the week it was. So I wasn’t feeling exactly “very very lucky”.  That aside, I am not exactly Bond, James Bond so I doubted that “many many women” thought about me.

Off tops, I could think of my mother on I-hope-my-son-is-fine level and female employees at the tax offices. Even then, I was just another name amongst thousands to them. Those are the only women who would be actively thinking about me.

Flashback a few months earlier, a man had said something similar if not the exact same words to me at Chinatown. I quite remember it was a pretty dark period in my personal life as well.

So obviously, these spiritual men knew the right lines to pitch for the average man to swallow hook, line and sinker but they definitely had to work on their timing. I am not an average man though and like a spitter, I wasn’t swallowing anything.

“You see mister, I am a Christian and I do not believe in mysticism, ouija boards, palm-reading, fortune-telling etc so you will have to miss me with that. I respect your (witch)craft though.”

He was genuinely taken aback. The seer obviously had not seen that one coming (See what I did there?) I have always insisted that if fortune tellers could fortune-tell, there will be no need for fortune-telling. They will basically talk themselves out of a job. I did not give him chance to recover, I shuffled away as quickly as possible.

“You get busy, you get lucky…” “Keep moving my son…” “The harder you work, the luckier you will get…” He was saying other such inspirational lines and it sounded above everything else, an attempt to convince himself more than anyone else within earshot. This man may have missed his calling. He could’ve been a motivational speaker.

That night, I could not keep my mind on anything other than that Mahatma Gandhi/Buddha hybrid (imagine that) and his immense turban. I nodded off to sleep. In my dream I saw a turban chasing after a Black man over a hill in a manner not dissimilar to how Tom the cat will chase Jerry. One minute the turban will be running on feet like a leprechaun’s – as if I know what a leprechaun’s feet look like – and the next minute flying after him like a kite.

The man Usain Bolted across the bumpy hills as I subconsciously cheered for him. But he faced the other direction so I could not figure out his countenance. Then suddenly, he changed directions and guess who was being chased? He was me, me, me. You can imagine my fright (and flight) O ladies and gentlemen.

I snapped out of the nightmare deliberately with all the effort I could physically muster. Damn. "What the..." Just then I had a Eureka moment. The proverbial light bulb switched on and I thought I could test this turban man...

TO BE CONT