Of Brasseries, Brassieres and Social Blunders

    I don’t know how I ignored it all these months. Today morning I looked back at the incident and burst out laughing at the innocence of my friend, a more pristine chap I have to yet come across.

    Anyway, I guess you would like me to get down directly to brass tacks (pun intended – you will know it soon), for you don’t have the entire time in the world to just listen to my preambles, what?

    Three of us, Vikas, his friend Savita and myself were strolling ildy in the streets of Paris. There are these small restaurants strewn all over Paris and the headings of these something in the lines of Éliose Brasserie, Fabienne Brasserie, Juliette Brasserie and so on and so forth - you get the drift.

    So our Vikas confuses a Brasserie to a more popular word in these parts of the world, the Brassiere. I mean, there is a good reason for anyone to get confused - for the bane of the English language being its spellings and some words pronounced almost similarly. The doubt was gnawing Vikas for a longtime about the promiscuousness of the French and also the confusion as to why an eatery has the name of probably an exclusive woman store. Frankly, the thing baffled me also initially for my spellings are not too great but the discerning part of me arrived at the conclusion that perhaps the Brasserie was long for a Bar just like how the other word is long for a woman's undergarment.

    The indefatigable Vikas would not heed to commonsense - his curiosity, encouraged even more by the confession from the girl that she was learning French, getting better of him,  in all innocence put the question across to the girl, "Savita, any idea why they call these restaurants Brassieres..." his voice trailing away, for just as he began to pop the question, I ran for cover for I never have been one of those to handle an embarrassing moment with sound presence of mind.

    Now, that I say needs lot of purity of mind and a singleness of purpose. For Vikas, it was not the awkwardness of the thing that ever came his way; it was always pursuit of knowledge that took the front seat.

    I ran means, I real ran for cover... no amount of chaining Vikas could have made him hold his horses. I would give anything to-day to have a fleeting glimpse of the immediate expression on the girl’s face.

Comments

[Mahi]

Your interest is in person or the look? Anyways, just kidding. Yes, with Vikas it is possible! Your thoughts run far deep down under :-)