Raspberry Swirl

"He wears nice ties, sometimes," noted an acquaintance of mine earlier today.
"He also has funny ones," she added, which I thought was more on the mark.

I didn't ask her if she meant funny(strange) or funny(haha): Mahendra's ties switch with ease between the two categories, often occupying both simultaneously.

Tonight I found not only his tie, but his entire outfit, 'funny'.

His jacket was a shimmering silver (although perhaps that was just my television; it could have been merely a light grey), and curiously striped. The stripes themselves gave the effect of standing out from the jacket, reminding me of those hologram pictures that were all the rage in the early '90s. I had to keep blinking my eyes to see if they would go away, but they didn't.

I know quilted jackets are in this winter (again) - but an embossed jacket?! I'm not quite sure that Mahendra is on trend with this one.

Then there was the so-not-subtle stitching detail around the buttonhole on his lapel, which I suspect could become a trademark of Mahendra's style. This time it was in black (and when I went up close to the screen, there appeared to be white stitching, around the black stitching, around the buttonhole). It matched his microphone, but did not go at all with the light tone of the jacket.

Mahrendra's shirt was plum-coloured, and the most mundane part of his attire. It only gets one sentence. Or two, or three...

The tie itself? It was a showstopper! My guess is it was chosen in a well-intentioned attempt to match the jacket, the shirt, and the microphone, all at once. I can't swear I remember all the colours (my eyes were bamboozled at the time), but I noted tones of royal purple, grey, black, white, light pink, and maroon.

It looked like raspberry-swirl ice cream, when it is still in the container before you have disturbed its pristine, striped glory.

Sometimes I feel as if Mahendra is teasing us all...

[See also "Goeie Genugtig..."]