Friday, April 17, 2009

My Most Embarrassing Moments

How many times have you thought "I wish I could just vanish into thin air".
Those mortifying moments when you want to bury your head deep underground like an ostrich.

Embarrassing moments stand out in our memories, don't they? I have been through sticky moments many a time. But there are few of them which stands out etched deep

This happened when I was in school in class 5. The event was Annual School day and I participated in a dance show. Being a dance show, I was all decked up with Lehenga, jewelery and pancakes on my face. Soon after the cultural programs was the prize distribution ceremony. I was to pick up 2 prizes. The names were called out, as my name was announced, I ran near the stage and climbed on the stairs to get near the gentleman who was giving away the prizes. There were around 5-6 important people all seated on the stage. As I walked, I stepped on my Lehenga and tripped and fell flat on the stage. Next what I heard were roars of laughter, cat calls. I got up, did not dare to see anyone, flicked my prize and ran away.
I did not go up to collect my second prize when my name was called.

One more incident also incidentally involves Lehenga. I started working pretty early, when I was around 17 years. Worked as a teaching staff at a computer training institute. Being a private institute, the students were from all ages - 15 to 50. I worked part-time and one evening, my mom insisted that I wear a particular outfit. Her justification was that I was ignoring the dress for quite sometime and I must wear it that day. Any explanation that I was going for my work and that I was a teaching staff worked out. As it was, I was the youngest staff and the students found it absurd to be learning from someone as young as me. I faced lots of ridicule and rejections as their ego did not let them take instructions from a girl who looked like a 5th grader. My mom would not listen, she was stubborn. And guess what? The outfit was the Pattu pavadai and blouse. As it was silk, the cloth was elaborate with golden border and patterns and the colours rich. The picture below is what a Pattu pavadai is.


I wore it to work and I dared not get out of the staff room. Entire staff was glaring at me as if I were a little girl and they even wondered for a moment if they had by mistake hired an under-age! Few students who could get a sneak peek were amused as well. It was so humiliating.

One more incident that left me red-faced was during my college days. We went back to college once the college re-opened for the fifth semester. That was third year of engineering. I and my friend were sitting during a break; outside the class room where the next lecture was going to be held. A young, tall, handsome guy passed by us. We checked him out, commented loud so that he can hear us, laughed away and forgot about it. We thought he might be a 1st year freshmen. After the break, we got into our classroom for the next lecture - File Systems. Here walks in the young, tall, handsome guy. He looked at both of us and we just wanted to sneak under the chairs and vanish! I must add that he was really a good lecturer and was soon liked by all the students.

There are few events which happen most days in your life. I get sort of panicky when I get into malls and the restrooms there have designer taps. They turn all sides but don't release water. I am not sure if there's something wrong with me that I cant understand the elite and complicated design. Turning them all sides, no water. Think the thing does not work and move onto next wash sink and the same happens there. Someone else watching me struggle comes to my rescue. The first thing I did when I checked into a hotel in CA was to check the taps. I panicked that there were no water supply and called the maintenance. I was like "Oh my! They say things in USA is so perfect and the first thing I encounter is a room with no water facility!". The guy came over and checked that everything was fine. I dread to imagine what he would have thought about me. Maybe what a country idiot!

Another classic awkward moment for me was when I used to go shopping with my mom. Ladies are known to bargain. But the way my mom does, and the war of words exchanged with the salesmen, I don't want to be part of the embarrassment anymore and later I chose to stand far away from her so that I would be the first to run out just in case.....

Another disconcerted moment happened recently. We friends from the swimming class decided to lunch together. I and my friend realized that we did not have enough cash with us. I told her not to worry as I carried my debit and credit card and that we can find a ATM and withdraw some money. Unfortunately my debit card was faulting and the card was not being recognized by any ATMs. I thought it was fine as I could use my credit card to withdraw some money. But alas!, I have never used my credit cards to withdraw money anytime earlier and so did not bother to know the PIN number. I somehow consoled my friend saying that we can use the card to pay the bill. At the end of the lunch, each one paid their amount and my friend and me were like....eeeks...it was so abashed. I caught myself and informed that I would pay for me and my friend with the card and so we pass the money and the card for the payment. Remaining amount to be debited from my card. But another friend passed on her card and she paid ours too and later I transferred the money to her account. I should learn to have some hard cash with me henceforth.

There are lots more, but I need to get into damage control mode. Enough of self-humiliation. So what was the most embarrassing moment for you folks?

14 comments:

  1. ha ha ha... it's nice that you took a moment to recollect all these incidents! i have a ton of them too!

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  2. By the way that lehenga looks so cute. :-)

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  3. Please share them here. I am curious to hear those mortifying moment of yours. That photo was available on the internet. My lehenga resembled this one. I hope you can visualize how I would have looked(like a child) lecturing the students!

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  4. Nice post. Right now I can think of one. I went to a party. Lot of people there. I commented to a girl standing next to me "It's too crowded here". People in the nearby area looked at me. The girl smiled and moved on. Later, my friend told me that phrase is a code word to ask someone whether she is interested to go somewhere else and be alone.

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  5. I meant alone just the two of them.

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  6. heheheheheehe...lol!

    my entire life is filled with such moments

    1. I was in a hurry and mistakingly entered a mens loo! I did not read the sign properly actually and as I entered inside I saw a boy and scolded him for being there (in a girls loo what I thought)! hahahahaha..I still remember the expressions on his face !!

    2. and one day one senior was there we all were talking , one faculty was also present there. That day he was telling about a new deo he had bought and his liking for the deos.
    then he casually asked me if I use deos. I immid. replied withought giving a second thought
    "no sir I bath everyday" !!!

    all the pple standing there were rolling on the floor and that senoir was visibly embrss. after that he never spoke to me !!!

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  7. Ankita, Hahahahaha...LOL!! Your impulsive response that you bath everyday was really really unexpected.

    And yes..Men's Loo. And I my friend went to our office reception to get a sprain spray. Sprain was on my neck. We took the sprain spray bottle and went near the Loo. We were engrossed in our talk and we also were not aware of the layout of 3rd floor. We were about to enter Men's Loo when a guy walked out. We were saved in a nick of time but left us embarrassed. Meanwhile the security guard saw us going into wrong room and ran behind us too.

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  8. LOL! Mano, I guess the lady handled it well!. If my guess is right, its the cultural difference that has resulted in this embarrassment here.
    Good one.

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  10. We were in a godforsaken college called Jeppiar Engineering college. Any engineer in Chennai would know about this college, and would get a shiver of disgust when we talk about any of the Jeppiar's colleges. There are separate stairways to the same class for boys and girls. In the buses, I have heard of sections for boys and girls separated by ropes. And different sections for everything for girls and boys. If a boy is spotted talking to a girl, I was told rigorous punishment would be given. With these initial facts, my narration begins here.

    We are a team of five who go to every college symposium for ad zap competitions. We were so freaking irregular to college, having about 20% of attendance. Ha ha ha... But we would be given a lot of on-duty permission because we ended up winning some prize or the other for acting crazy on stage for the event called as zap, which involves acting on spot ads for a topic given. We were the next team on stage and were supposed to be on stage in the next three minutes. I, along with my friend, were the crazy guys with the responsibility to make people laugh. I suddenly realized that I urgently had to go to the loo. With three minutes to go, not paying attention to back stage rehearsal, I was looking for a loo. The closest men's restroom was about 100 meters away for sure, on the other end of the lobby.

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  11. There was no way I would have made it there. I peeped in one corner and I found a women's restroom. Trust me. We were at the peak of our mischievousness at that point of time. The fact that we have not changed in another story altogether. Ok, now coming back to the story again... I went in with a naughty grin, did what I had to do. As I was coming out, I saw three girls in sarees shocked (Girls in college were sarees during symposia). They were not allowed to even talk to guys in their stupid college. How their reaction must have been when they saw me coming out of the women's rest room is best left to viewers imagination. I smiled at them with a finger on my lips, winked my eye, and wished them a nice day. With two minutes to go for the stage act, and with mischievous spirits high, we went on to win the first prize, and yes made some people laugh too... Not to mention, those girls were the symposium organizers sitting in the front row. :-) Ha ha ha...

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  12. So you made the girls embarrassed Gautam! Did you ever get embarrassed anytime?

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  13. See, almost all of us had an embarassing moment connected with entering the wrong bathroom. Having separate bathrooms for men and women is a discrimination (ala separate seats for blacks and whites before 1960). Therefore, I am going a start a big movement to have gender free bathrooms in all the places. That is my election manifesto.

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  14. Hahahahahaha.. what a superb manifesto Mano. Discrimination against men and women. Vote for Gender free bathrooms...Hahahahaha

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I'd love to know what you thought :-) Please shoot!