I had to go to get a caricature done for my visiting card. Yes, there is going to be a picture of me on my visiting card and it’s going to be a cartoon. Almost reality.

So there I was at Kalaghoda, near Jehangir Art Gallery with some colleagues from work to get my caricature done from Mr. Something (forgot his name… actually, chose not to remember!). My vision of an artist with a french beret dressed in black, standing in front of an easel with a colour palette in hand, speaking with an Italian accent was crudely shattered by someone named Suresh-Ramesh (could have been Himesh, not sure), sitting under a beach umbrella nowhere close to the beach with one black paint bottle, 3 brushes and his easel was an old writing examboard, whose clothes looked like they hadn’t been washed in days and whose teeth could do with a whitewash or at least, be painted white and HE was going to draw me.

I sat there, outside the Museum on a rather rickety chair praying all the while that it wouldn’t snap, very reluctantly and started wondering when this nightmare would end. But things had to get worse before they got any better! People started gathering! Some snickered, some laughed out loud, some felt sorry for me and walked away while some stared with an intensity that almost burned a hole in my skull. I tried to see on the brighter side of things and falsely consoled myself that, out of this extremely embarrassing debacle, I would have a cool visiting card.

He finishes the caricature.

I rise from my seat.

Walk gingerly towards the writing-examboard-cum-easel.

Look at my picture.

Scream.

The man drew a nose the size of the Elephanta Caves, cheeks like that was all that is there to my face and lips like I had just got them Botox-ed. AAAHHHH!!!! He did draw pretty eyes though. Apparently, he draws all girls/ women ugly-ly. Maybe he is part of some secret Female Hating Group which gets pleasure out of drawing ugly pictures of girls/ women. Never going to him ever again.

Next time, I’ll ask Chris. He is nicer. Way nicer!!!

No visiting cards are going to be given out to anyone, that’s for certain! I’d rather write my contact details on a piece of paper and draw a stick-figure on the side!!

That’s another day at work.

Ta!!