A new line of business

Even as I complete 6 months in the US, I'm always brought to the reality of how life here can take u by surprise, and how much of pitfalls there are for you to stumble and make yourself look bad..

I had to attend a key summit and so I went suit shopping.. now, for a person of my build, its very difficult to get one that doesn’t seem like being covered in a sack. Fortunately for me, I got a 36S in a very good and unique color, so I went for it only to realize that the pant length was only 30 where I needed 32. Now Vinod who was with me said that there are altering shops and they would increase the length. I bought the suit.

Two days later, Vinod and I went to the altering shop; its some distance away from the office, but we preferred to walk. Now, S. California has started to get hot, and so walking in white shirts and stuffed in neck-ties wasn’t too pleasing an experience and I was concerned I got Vinod also involved.

Anyways, we FINALLY reached our destination, and there was a Chinese lady at the store; the usual "Hello how are you" was done and i took out the pants and rattled off "I want to increase the length, take off this folding and have once cm from the bottom left. That should do" The woman had her mouth so open that you could drive a truck through it. She goes "what what what". Vinod takes over "He wants to lengthen it". She says "By How much"... "2 inches".. “okay”... As easy as that. I pacify myself by thinking she was not knowledgable enough to understand my highly polished english. (Am also reminded of the film Mazha peyyunnu… Mohanlal – “Please don’t lengthen it”)

She prepared the check (the same old "bill" back home) and said to us "Tuesday". Man!! A week to increase the length of a pant. But I got the shock of my life when I saw the amount. 16$. To put things in perspective, an Arrow or a Dockers pant costs around 6-10$ in a sale. I could've got three pants for the stitching charge. That very thought gave me the jitters. We silently collected the check and came out.

Somehow, the walk back seemed to last forever.

I’m so tempted to resign and open a tailoring shop instead!!