Our Man

“Our Man” was a much-used term when I was in college. It was usually applied to friends when they starred in not very flattering stories. While Our Man anecdotes tended to have more than a hint of schadenfreude, they were rarely malicious. Though gleeful, the schadenfreude was generally affectionate, if such a thing is possible.

“So Our Man is standing there on Sayaji Rao Road, all nattily turned out and all. Right opposite Bata’s, just next to those trees where the roosting mynahs shit on you in the evening. Our Man’s eyes are popping out from ogling the girls. There was a whole busload of them. Tourist season, after all. Then suddenly Our Man looks down at himself. Maybe he felt a cool breeze or something in the lower region. So he looks down and notices that his fly is open. You should have seen Our Man’s face!”

Those kinds of stories. Our Man of the moment, more often than not present at the telling, would weakly protest the exaggerations, or try to ride it out with bravado, insisting that the apparent embarrassment was actually deliberate, part of some subtle plan his friends could not be expected to understand.

We all had our turns at being Our Man. In time we were obliged to become Men, just plain men with jobs and families, ambushed by respectability, and Our Man stories faded away. But somewhere Our Man still lurks, and pops up at unexpected moments…