This has been churning in the mill for about two weeks now. I tried all kinds of mills… pepper mill so that I can bring out some peppy  snuff… I mean stuff… that can ‘ackchhoo’ly leave you rubbing your nose wondering who we had the rendezvous with…

Or a cider mill so that I can concoct some juicy bit of info about whom we met…

Or a textile mill where I can ‘fabric’ate yarns about what happened at the meeting…

At the end of the self imposed deadline, I am exhausted… All that shaping, grinding, pulverizing, polishing etc etc. has left a feeling in me as though I was doing a marathon on a treadmill… running but reaching nowhere!

So here I am turning away from the cul de sac and trying to give you my two cents…. But then again, you shall have to settle for a ‘mill’! Okay….okay…. shall stop bullshitting and get down to business!

It all happened two weeks back. Mottogucci (who happens to be my sister)  comes- a - visiting after three years and we plan to have a whale of a time ( two whales… by the size of …er… things…)… One lazy afternoon while ‘blah…blah’ing about blogging I tell her that a particular blogger known to her may be in town on an assignment. She is all excitement and wants to meet the blogger if possible.

So we decide to do things the way things ought to in blogdom. We send a note to the said blogger who is rather reticent about revealing identity. We write politely that ‘we  shall understand if the blogger wants to retain the aura of mystery…’ Of course we didn’t mean it. Because we typed that one with fingers crossed…

Anyway, said blogger agreed to meet us on a weekend… at a public place. Now for convenience sake let me refer to the blogger as ‘Incognito’ I am respecting Incognito’s wish to remain elusive to the public… I am also responding to the gauntlet thrown at my feet that I shall fail to keep the identity a secret…

So readers… the blogger shall be, hitherto, referred to as  ‘Incognito’.

Notes are volleyed to and fro deciding the date, time and venue of the ‘close encounter of the mysterious kind’.  We decide on neutral grounds… and what can be more neutral than a South Indian restaurant in Dubai, on a Friday morning! 

Incognito was asked how we shall recognize each other. The serve was deftly parried and we got a note as to how Incognito could recognize us. Having no reason for hiding our identities ( can’t hide the bulk and the hulk…) we said, look out for  two fat ladies accompanied by spouses -  a baldie and an Amrish Puri look-alike…

 The husbands were cheesed off… as it is, visiting blogdom is no thrill for them… meeting virtual strangers ( pun unintended) … an ordeal… for they know, we’d be ‘yak yak’ing on all the who’s who and what’s what of Sulekhadom and they’ll be left twiddling their toes… Can’t twiddle thumbs…. Too obvious… One said ( like Obelix who says, Fat? Who’s fat?) Bald?  I have more hair than what your blogger friend Balaji has… Motto laughs… The other one says: Amrish Puri?  ME? I say hurriedly… ‘No… no….that’s the bald one…like in Indiana Jones… and buy time!

Anyway, we are at the restaurant at 10 to 9 in the morning. We wonder if Incognito is already there. Then we realize what great fools we have been. We neither exchanged mobile numbers… nor asked how we’d recognize Incognito… whether Incognito would be accompanied by family… The husbands snigger gleefully… One down for us!

We troop upstairs and survey the area. Any potential Incognito there? All were eating. Sigh of relief! Are sure Incognito wouldn’t start without us. But we do just that…. Motto’s son gets the pangs of hunger on seeing people gorging all around him…so we order a puri bhaji to keep the little guy quiet! While we wait we try to throw unobtrusive glances around to see if we have actually missed Incognito and are we being observed…assessed… ‘blog-topicafied’!

My better half decides to go down and be the lookout; returns in five minutes with an Archimedean smile that has  ‘Eureka!’ written all over it…  “I have left a note at the reception so that Incognito will find us up here…”  he says… only he has blundered Instead of Incognito he had written ‘Incongenito’ , so I go down and  redo the note and repost it… er… repaste it…! While down, I survey  the tables wondering if Incognito is waiting there for us… If so, he is doing a good job, for I can not detect anyone who looks  like a blogger… ( HAH! Talk about mental type-casting!)

Back upstairs, Motto and I start commenting on each new entrant… Can this be Incognito? The lady with the toddler? The bearded guy in kurtha- pyjama? The Mallu with wife, son and daughter? The Southie with aged parents? This is dilemma of the highest order! The guys deal us a few infra digs on the IQ levels of Bloggers who do not know how to do proper groundwork for a project…we choose to ignore the barbs…

Finally someone pauses a couple of tables ahead and gives us the once over. I can see the windmills turning there… literally not saying anything but thinking…Two- fat-ladies… one- baldie…one … does he look like Amrish Puri…? But they didn’t say anything about the tyke… Should I? Or shouldn’t I….?  And I mouth ‘ IN – COG- NI- TO?’ and the person walks towards us relieved.

Now let me clear part of the mystery. Incognito is a ‘HE’.

Incognito had been waiting for us outside the restaurant since 9 O clock trying observe without being obvious whether all those people trooping hungrily in were folks from Blogsville… Finally, without even glancing at the note we had painstakingly posted at the billing counter ( the problem with Sulekhites is that we look at comments more and Notes less….! Heh….heh…!),  he proceeded upstairs to do a Sherlock Holmes there! What a waste of 20 precious minutes… but knowing Incognito’s penchant for writing such amazing stuff, probably those 20 minutes would have had him plotting out more than a dozen Bloggable topics…

After general introductions, we discover that it is a very small world. Incognito is on a stint for a sister concern of Mr. Motto.

 Incognito tells us about his misgivings on whether we would meet him. In fact, while waiting outside, a waiter comes out of the restaurant and hands him a parcel telling him it is his chutney... leaving him bewildered as to whether it is a prank played by us... We say, 'Of course, we are wicked.... but not as bad all that!'

The next two hours fly… We try our best to include the spouses in the conversation but…. 99.8% of the conversation is on various Sulekhites, various comments we have received… exchange of  info on  why we wrote certain blogs… ribbing one another gently, laughing and having a whale of a time. Incognito urges Motto to start blogging again, telling her it is a criminal waste of her talents… but the Taurean Motto is bull-headed… Nope! She says… I am out of it all. I may come back… but not at the moment! Knowing her, that’s the way it would be…

I wonder why Incognito didn’t tell me to keep writing… Aaah! I know… May be he knows I am a thick skinned hippo…Maybe he doesn’t much like my kind of writing… but he has been a regular reader and I am happy  he’ll be in future as well.

 ( If he doesn’t… I’ll start e- mailing my stuff to him!)

Well…the management would have probably thrown us out of the place if we hadn’t reluctantly removed ourselves… We offer to drop Incognito back… making sure that we can torture him for another 25 minutes…

At the end of the tryst, I ask him: “So… are you going to write about this… or can  I?” Being the thorough gentleman he is, he says, “Ladies first, of course!” but lobs the gauntlet at me with ‘Try to keep my identity a secret…’  I make a gutsy promise which I regret for the next 15 days… for it is a humongous task not to reveal his identity. After a week, I send him a note saying I am groping in the dark, unable to formulate my modus operandi… He replies saying he will give me another week. I can see that mischievous smile even as I read the note!

Days are hectic as Motto’s furlough is drawing to an end. Don’t know when she’ll make it again… We call Incognito and talk to him ( Of couse, we remembered to swap mobile numbers…) I tell him he has set me a Herculean task… but I’d give it a try a day or two after Motto leaves…

….and here I am.

That was a breakfast worth remembering…. Meeting an ultimate gentleman,  a very knowledgeable, creative and enterprising blogger and a very humourous and genuine human being.

Incognito, if Sulekhites don’t recognize you  by now, they don’t deserve to know! Heh… heh…

I hope this twist serve of mine gets me an ace! The ball, pal, is in your court now!