Of Innuendoes & Blindfolds

Some things in life look simpler to achieve than they actually are.

You don't agree ? Ok - heres a task for you. Try and buy a 100 blindfolds from anywhere. Yes, those simple harmless pieces of clothing that you may have not even given a second thought to when you got it from one of the airlines perhaps, during a long flight. Just so that we are on the same page, heres what you need to be looking for.For those of you who think this is an easy task, please STOP reading here - and go around trying to buy this first. For the rest of you, let me narrate our harrowing experience !

Rakesh is my colleague. The two of us set about looking for this innocuous piece of clothing around 10 days back. Before any of your imaginations jump ahead - let me clarify why. Among the different activities that we conduct as a part of team building activities, we have something that we call the "Blindfold Square". As the name suggests - the activity requires that all participants be blindfolded before we start it

Totally unaware of what lay ahead, we first went to a childrens toy store. Incidentally we spend a lot of time now-a-days in such stores figuring out activities that we can use for adults in team building - anything that is specified as for 3+ years qualifies in our radar. Since we had seen blindfolds being used in some kids birthday, we figured it must be a off-the-shelf item. "Do you have blindfolds ?" I asked. The shopkeeper gave us a grin.... "yeh aapke liye hai - ya bacchon ke liye ?" he asked. "Irrelevant question", I thought and told him in a very matter of fact way : "Ye badon ke liye hai...".... before i finished the sentence I suspected I saw his grin getting a bit wider. "Nahin sir, woh sab nahin rakthe" he said with a wide toothy grin.

"Funny guy", I told myself. And we went on undeterred to the next shop. Same question - same response. The looks were only getting funnier. By then the sexual innuendoes that we were getting had dawned on us both. At a few places we both got looked over slowly - as the wide grin was flashed once again.... almost unconsciously, we began standing imperceptibly a little further apart from each other.

5 shops and the same reaction everywhere. The hunt was quickly moving from a casual to a desperate stage. Perhaps an indication of the desperation was when I saw Rakesh slip into an Osim store. They were selling those new vibrating / massaging chairs there. Then I realised why he went there - he had spied a new product they were selling "uSleep".... if there is sleep, a "sleep mask" wouldn't be far behind - he had figured. (Notice also how the "blindfold" had quickly metamorphised into a "sleep mask"). I didn't ask him what happened there - but I guess he left behind a very disappointed salesman happy to see a customer walk in for a product, only to be asked for a "sleep mask" !

A few more shops - a few more snide looks and grins - and we arrived at the conclusion that it was time to pull out all stops. We went looking for other avenues. First stop : GOD GOOGLE. He quickly pointed us out to Amazon.com. "Good lord ! Amazon sells even this ?" I caught myself thinking. A few quick steps and we suddenly had in front of us a choice of hundreds of different types of blindfolds - ranging from 2$ to 50$ - without shipment charges. We were in no mood to go to another shop and bear those looks - so, "this is it" - we told ourselves. "Hail the anonymity of the internet", "Lets order for 100". We chose the 2$ blindfold and with a few clicks of the mouse & keyboard reached the checkout stage. And then it happened - lo and behold - "Amazon.com does not ship this product to India" said the website. "But why ?" we almost screamed !..... "perhaps some internet error", the optimist in us told us. And so we tried again - and again - and again. Finally we got the message : It was true. Considering the burgeoning population of India, amazon.com had decided that Indians could do without any such artificial aid !

GOD GOOGLE had led us to a dead end. We remembered Amitabh Bachhan : "Phone a friend" we told oursleves. I called up a friend. As soon as I mentioned "blindfolds", his broke out laughing. "Hey - interesting work you guys are doing - dont tell me you guys get people to do kinky stuff too" he bellowed. "Et tu Brutus ?" - I felt like telling him, but got away telling him something milder. "Let me see if I have any lying around at home" he said, and then quickly clarified, "picked up from some airline flight". "ok" we said.

By now we realised that buying a blindfold was a lost cause. The only honourable way of getting it was taking an existing piece to a tailor and asking him to stitch 100 more like that. And dare the tailor even bare a glimmer of a grin, we take our business elsewhere.

So, how do we lay our hands on that one elusive piece of blindfold.... we were racking our brains now. It was almost like the search for Yeti.... almost everyone had heard of it, but nobody knew where it came from !

I believe we were one step away from prayers.... when suddenly light shone. My wife who was in Bangalore for some work and who was a party to all our travails called me. Her brother was shifting houses and in the process doing a lot of "de-cluttering" - meaning throwing away lot of unwanted stuff that houses have a habit of swallowing.... and.... not one, not two - but three different types of blindfolds had been spotted. "Do you still need it ?" she asked. For just a moment, I realised how Columbus must have felt after months and months of travelling and seeing only blue seas - to see the first signs of land emerging. "Yes" I almost shouted, "Yes, please get me all the blindfolds you get your hands onto !"

Today I am the proud owner of 3 blindfolds that have come all the way from Bangalore. While they await to be taken to a tailor for further re-production, an evil thought creeps into my mind : The next time we interview someone for a job, one of the tests we put him / her through would be : "How fast can you arrange 100 blindfolds ?"..."your time starts now !"