Watch out for the friendly

Have you ever encountered a human being who makes you hate the class of those pretentious friendly conversationalists, who would superficialy appear to be the most innocuous and affable guys around and then ambush you the moment you have fallen into their trap?? Wow!! Now that classisfies as one of the lengthiest accusation i have ever made. But as you will soon find out that is not without a reason.
It was one of those sunny sundays and I was hanging around at Landmark, a bookstore in B'lore, flipping through the pages dreamily thinking about many a things in life. "You have a good choice!!", a voice says from behind me. I glance over my shoulders and there is this guy standing by my side with a wide sagelike smile spread over his face, looking at me as if he can read me in and out. I at once felt conscious as i usually do talking to strangers and muster the faintest of smile, my mind performing the arithmatics of Who is this guy? Why the hell did he choose to talk to me when there are so many people around? Doesn't he resemble the gay male protagonist of some movie i had seen ?? All this while he continues to smile, a smile that grows in a crescendo with each passing second, now contorting his face as it rises a notch higher. The silence that has now ensued for eternity finally concludes as he says with an overwhelming ease, "You have a great taste. I have been noticing you for a while now." I now felt ashamed of myself for having been so curt, also beginning to savour the subtle flattery in his words. And there i had it. Before I could evaluate the situation and its possible repurcussions as i normally would, I had let my guards down and allowed myself to be talked into a situation that would soon culminate into a cynicism i now carry for all friendly strangers walking the B'lore cityscape.
He introduced himself as Abhishek and asked me questions about my work, my experience so far in dealing with the nighmarish B'lore traffic and ofcourse he talked about how he felt i had a superior reading taste to others around who were just fad readersin his opinion. Huh, a nice compliment!!Now there is something so very sinister about flattery. It works where all other instruments of persuasion fail. And boy wasn't i feeling good about myself. He told me he had recently shifted to bangalore , having worked for two years with some MNC in Mumbai. Perfectly normal and innocuous talk by any standards. Anyway it was pretty late already and i was getting into the usual calculus of how to draft a good goodbye statement. There again he came to my rescue and reached out for his wallet from which he would later draw a busniss card and holding it between his index finger and thumb, give it to me with that characteristic smile of his. I reciprocated the card giving ceremony and left, by now in total enchantment of his suaveness and easy manners.
The next evening he called me up and the confabulation took the usual contours of work and life and traffic before it finally got into aspirations and futuristic visions, which in retrospect i feel was purely by design rather than a coincidence. He revealed that he had recently gotten into an exciting business venture and asked how i felt about startups and big business ideas. Now this was the trick. He had talked me into feeling that i was the trusted one, someone who belongs to the inner circle of trust. Basking in the warmth of his confidence in me, i spoke at length about the success stories I had heard of and how i would love to be a part of one someday. How neat! The iron was now hot enough to be hammered..( to be continued in the next post)