‘Wimble Den Open’

Hey I have seen something like space marketing before! What was it like now? Oh yes, selling vegetables. Or even selling soft porn. Hm…that reminds me of the soft porn dealers of Wimble Den.

These soft-porn movie sellers have a way with direct marketing, they seem to take it much too directly. There is an over-bridge and under it is a passageway near Grant Road and I have come to call that place Wimble Den. Let me tell you how I framed the name or rather how the name framed itself.

I happen to walk through this passage everyday to my hotel after work. There is no choice but to do that because I am not too good at jumping off over-bridges.

One fine day, as I was walking through this thriving corridor of soft porn, a hairy hand shoved a few soft porn movie CDs in my face and said, ‘SS.’ It instantly conjured images of Hitler’s SS and presumed it to be a war movies and then when he saw my puzzled face he said, ‘RR’, I though what the hell is RR now? I imagined German army divisions deploying near Grant Road and the Generals initials being RR. But soon my doubts were dispelled when he said ‘Open’. He uttered the word with the feeling of intense liberation as if life had found a renewed meaning. He went on, ‘Open bole to ekdum khulla.’ It was my turn to think now, so I thought and said while mocking his accent, ‘Open bole to ekdum Wimbledon Open?’

‘I can’t take it.’ I told him even after he kept repeating ‘Wimbledon’ perceiving it as my code for soft porn. But I couldn’t take it although his method of marketing was quite direct and ‘in the face’. I can’t take it because I am sure my boss won’t be amused if I am caught watching soft porn movies in office. ‘Iss mein story hai’, he says as if it’s an achievement on part of the director to think about the storyline when he can simply give a go ahead for sex.

I cant take it because I doubt it that my 7 present roomies, one marketing head and 44 future roomies will ever reach a consensus about watching it together, or whatever the criteria involved in the consensus, I leave it to your imagination.

How will I explain to the hotel guy that why my 44 future roomies are crowding around my bed on which I sit looking gullible with a lappy. What do I say?; they are surrounding me because the roomy love is overflowing tonight? Or that they are crowding around me because I have the treasure? The Nami-baba and the 44 roomies story won’t help then.

And who has the energy to watch a soft porn movie after a days work at The Indian Express where I am already behind schedule. The only thing that is keeping me alive is the shock generated out of exodus vacating employees and a flurry of new bosses.

‘Sorry hairy guy from the Wimble Den, I can’t take it. Try selling it to the unemployed, i.e. if they have the money to buy it.’