An Insane Itinerary:Part 1

27^th of November, 2009

The entire day had gone by in completion of the vestiges of the packing procedure. All that remained outside were my clothes that I had decided to peel off and shove into the baggage at the last moment. And the Studio 15, which at that moment was showcasing the story of Scheherazade in a slightly interesting manner.  Vidarbha Express was scheduled to reach the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus at around 7.10, and Dadar at around 7.30, but it was the Kalyan Station I was contemplating disembarking upon, where it was to arrive at 8.13.

About 5 ‘o’ clock…

Mistri came into the room and asked me when it was that I planned to leave.

“In half an hour maybe.”

“What! Where are you going? CST?”

“Nope. Kalyan.”

“Then why are you leaving so early?”

“Why?”

Here is one lesson in life that got imprinted in my mind, and shall hopefully remain etched on it forever.

Here it is.

Lesson in Life no.1:- Never believe a man who you believe is a bigger nincompoop then you.

“’Coz it takes 5 minutes to Kalyan, asshole! You will just get bored in there. When’s the train due over there?”

“About 8 pm”

“No pain then. Leave around 7 pm. Maybe I can accompany you then.”

I was not the one to dissent this kindly offer. An extra pair of hands for manoeuvring your luggage is, if I am not wrong, welcome everywhere.

“Where are you going now?” I asked him, noticing a dishevelled bag in his grasp.

“Swimming. Wanna tag along?”

“No, I think I will save my energy for later.”

Around 6.30 pm…

I went up to Mistri’s room. Panic seized me as I saw it bolted and locked. The corridors presented a picture of desolation, and I, realizing that time was simply a commodity I couldn’t afford to lose at the moment, sped on, tossing things pell-mell into the bag. I noticed Rohit was still in his room, and he offered company which the first sight of an available Autowallah was to end. Evening Traffic rules the roost just outside the Insti’s main gate, and that was where the Autowallah left me to face it’s maniacal manifestation.

Horrendous honking, shrill shrieking, fulminous fumes being emitted endlessly by the automobiles pervaded the air as I scrutinised the roads for a gracious glimpse of an empty available Auto. Even the anticipation was to be, as I discovered, in vain.

I flailed my arms, raised ‘em high upto the heavens akin to Gospel Singers proclaiming ‘Hallelujah!’. I, on the other hand, proclaimed “Khali Ho Jaa!”

The sleek dial of the Tommy Hilfiger clasped on my wrist confided to me that it was 6.50 at the moment.

I braced myself for a last ditch attempt, after which, I had decided I was gonna walk to the Kanjurmarg station. I raised my hands in an Authoritative manner, and in a commanding voice, rent a cry of “AUTO!” in the air.

To my utter disbelief, an auto skidded to a stop mere decimetres away from me.

Hauling my luggage, I made my way towards it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a group of Baais making way for the same auto. Redoubling my locomotion, I arrived at the spot just as the Auto chugged away with them in tow.

Shit.

Chagrin assailed me, but it was no moment to wallow in self pity. I hauled the luggage once again, and started the tiresome descent to the station, the entire time keeping my eyes on the road in case a bus careened off and ran over.

7.10 pm…

A Sturdy Surd emerged out of nowhere, asking me the directions for Kanjurmarg station. I told him I was headed the same way, and all he had to do was to follow my lead. I struck up a conversation, during which the mystery regarding his presence here was unravelled. He had been on a laptop hunting spree for his girlfriend who had her birthday the succeeding day. The unfortunate soul’s car had broken down and to top it all he had suffered a fate similar to mine.

We walked side by side, the Sardar making it apparent every 48 seconds that he was not the one for long walks. Even short walks. Actually, walks in general. We now, what had seemed to me, were five minutes away from our destination, and spotted a fleet of empty autos standing at the side of the road. Sardar asked me if we should take one. Here was where I learnt the second one.

Lesson in Life no. 2:- Always take an empty Auto when you see one.

I replied in the negative, saying it was just round the corner. But as I dragged my bag on its wheels (the purpose of the wheel that off lessening the friction, was, it seemed, entirely forgotten by it) the load it seemed was steadily on the rise. Sardar offered to help, but I declined.

About 7.30 pm…

I broke into the middle of the ticket counter queue, requesting a corpulent office-goer in the front to buy me a ticket to Kalyan. The Sardar was lost to me amidst the milling crowd. Clutching the ticket, which, I realized, I had obtained within 2 minutes of having entered the Booking Office for the first time in my life, I ran to the platform.

An Insane Itinerary: Part 2

About 7.45…

“The Fast local for Kalyan is scheduled to arrive at the platform at 8:50 pm.

Kalyan jaane waali fast local platform me Aath Bajkar Pacchas minute pe aayegi”

8:51…

The incoming train brought with it a gust of wind and multitudes of people falling out carriages who then terminated the inertia they had attained by ricocheting with the people standing on the platform. I threw my one free hand in front of me in a Spartan Defensive move and hurled myself headfirst into the jostling, marauding, screaming, abusive, unruly mob as soon as the train came to a halt.

The bag I gave my priority in pilfering into the coach first. Some hand came and punched my nose.

I gave the bag a downward push, and felt satisfied upon hearing a muffled yowl erupt in pain.

I realised in was in the compartment. And someone was enquiring where it was exactly that I intended to dismount, while taking extreme care to penetrate my ear drums not unlike the shrill, jarring cacophony of an electric saw.

I replied Kalyan, taking extreme care to return the favour in kind, but am not sure of the degree of harm I had done to his eardrums as he seemed unperturbed. Damn. Situations like these make me hate the presence of the mellifluousness in my voice.

Five people in my vicinity ushered me back inside the train, all the time chanting that Kalyan was last in the line, which added to the imbroglio brewing in my mind all the more. I asked someone close by to give me an approximate duration of the trip.

What he said next spelt apparent doom in capital letters.

Somewhat like this.

A-P-P-A-R-E-N-T    D-O-O-M

“About 40-50 minutes…”

My mind blanked out as I struggled to come to terms with this information. I glanced at my watch.

7:56 pm ...

I could do nothing.

A deluge of despair engulfed me. Someone had just vacated their seat, and I grabbed it before anyone else could, requesting a boy who had been eyeing this particular seat for the last 5 minutes standing nearby to haul my bag upon the luggage shelf of the train. He complied while shooting me filthy looks out of his crow’s feet.

The suffocation inside the jam-packed train was rendering it all the more difficult to think in a sane way, or to think at all. My mind was now a cauldron full of hot, simmering, frothing oil, and each bubble on bursting spoke an abuse directed at the idiotic Mistri. I prayed to the Almighty above to somehow delay the train. Here was where I learnt the third one.

Lesson in Life no. 3:- Never hope for the seemingly impossible.

About 8.40…

“Hello, Mummy? Mera…umm… train miss ho gaya…to…err…ab kya karu?”

“Catch the earliest flight and come home.”

SLAM!

BEEP…BEEP…

Mommy Cool!

About 9.30 maybe…

“IIT jayega?” I asked the 5^th Autowallah in the line, and sighed in relief when he nodded his head in acquiescence.

Below is a translated version of the actual conversation that happened.

“You looked as if you needed to go to the Domestic Airport.” Said he.

“Well, no. Might need to go there in a couple of days though.”

Silence.

“Actually…

And then I learnt the fourth one.

Lesson in Life no. 4:- Never tell an Autowallah that you have just missed a train.

I missed my train.”

“Where were you going?”

“Nagpur. Via Vidarbha Express.”

“Where did you go? CST?”

“No. Kalyan.”

“How do you feel now?”

“Sad. Despondent.”

“And Guilty?”, his voice achieving a scornful tenor.

“Errr…why?”

“Of course you don’t feel an iota of it. That is the whole problem with today’s generation. With your parent’s hard earned money you must have bought that railway ticket and then you went ahead and missed it.”

“Wha…? I… ahhh…”

“I had a nephew once. His sister gave him her passport and some important documents and told him to keep it safely. He went ahead and lost it. And then he says sorry. You all say sorry. But do you really feel it from within?”

All I felt within at that moment was a complete inability to mouth any word.

“And now you will go through plane. More money will be gone.”

“The train ticket didn’t cost anything. My mom’s a Railway employee. She gets passes for me. Free of cost. “

“See, that is what I am talking about. You will argue but you won’t admit that you did the wrong thing. You should have left earlier to reach the station earlier, and you didn’t.”

“I did. I couldn’t because I couldn’t get an Auto in front of the Insti…”

“Exactly the way my nephew argued with me.”

I glanced at the rear view mirror to check if any facial feature of mine even remotely signified that I gave the tiniest bit of a wretched rat’s arse about this blighted nephew of his. No, there wasn’t any.

He continued jabbering away to glory as we entered the gates. I never opened my mouth other than to agree meekly to his musings. The topic turned to how coolly the couples in the institute roamed about to if I had any girlfriend to how difficult it was to get a girlfriend inside this institute as it had no girls worth hooking up with to how irreverent a soul I was to actually think of girls that way.

He dropped me in front of Hostel 4 and robbed me off an extra 5 rupee coin.

9:43 pm…

“Mistri Mother@#$#!!!!”

Berlusconi and The Butterfly Effect

Almighty above, I just love this century.

There is nothing more pleasurable (except a sexual orgasm, or drug-induced euphoria perhaps, I dunno, not having experienced either of them) than seeing the plebeian, the masses take on their own course of action. We, the people, are finally beating the hell outta the system, literally or otherwise, under the throes of a newfound political and democratic awareness which, as I foresee it, will go on to cease corruption and all that bad Jazz, and if this doesn’t, then only an apocalyptic end to this earth presumably by a crazy comet careening out of control and crashing on us will.

Now there are great many hypotheses that go on to explain the reason as to what propelled the attack, ranging from high taxes levied to acting a Muntazer Al Zaidi, the Iraqi who threw Nike at Bush, but none of them are scientific and logical. Here is one which goes on to reinforce the infallibility of the Chaos Theory, which states that even a butterfly flapping its wings in Wyoming  could trigger a typhoon in Tokyo ( must have been a pretty big one, huh?). The Butterfly Effect is a film that has taken inspiration from this theory.

Early in this day, Mr. Berlusconi would have woken up quite normally, have had a normal shit, normal brush, normal piss, normal breakfast and other normal unmentionables. Hell, he might even have said to himself while reflecting retrospectively the instance where he was taking a crap, “What a normal day it is turning out to be, oh Mamma Mia!”. He might have gone on to his office giving his aides those customary cursory glances that meant straight fucking business. He might have picked up the phone and barked a few orders that made him feel ultra-normal. Here was a day, he thought, you seldom get during a regime as a Prime Minister. He smiled a deep, satisfied, knowing smile.

Meanwhile, pandemonium reigned.

Not anywhere else, but in the heart of Mr. Massimo Tartaglia (tongue twister of a name!).

He had got up, feeling pretty abnormal and had glanced up to the calendar. Another day. Another fucking day had passed and he still hadn’t got laid. His memory failed him as he struggled to remember the last time he had a good time, but it sure had been a fucking long time since. He then went on to have an abnormal constipated shit, abnormal erratic brushing, abnormal piss that just failed to get inside the commode, abnormal burnt breakfast and other abnormal unmentionables. That he was seething with unspent, unbridled fury as he reflected retrospectively was an understatement.

His unwanted celibacy had earned him nothing but ridicule. Once while on a booze overdrive, his friends had commented over how big a sissy he was not to even try to nail a woman, he had gone completely overboard, vomiting over them and telling them atleast he had a better chance of fucking a nice hooker than Berlusconi who must be locked up within the confines of his hectic schedule.The next day the papers screeched like Banshees the sex scandal of Berlusconi and his alleged romp with a high profile prostitute. Several calls rang at the Tartaglia household that day, none of which he answered.

He went out, bought a newspaper.  And glanced at the headlines. It did nothing to stem his already growing anger, and if possible, inflamed him even more.

Berlusconi was going to be in Milan.

*                                  *                             *                               *                       *

“Friends, Romans….err….Milanese people, countrymen, I welcome you all to my…” droned Berlusconi a few hours later, completely oblivious to all the developments that had taken place. He glanced towards his left. A group of jackasses were shouting incoherently but audibly. They were exasperatingly pestilential, not unlike a swarm of mosquitoes, and it was getting on his nerves.

After a while, it got on his nerves.

It took all his self control not to shout, “Shut the fuck up you motherfuckers! What do you want from me, a resignation?”

Instead he shouted, “We must oppose you, because you want to transform Italy into a screaming piazza!”

This outburst, far from quelling it, conveyed to the protesters that they were getting the attention they sought. The decibel level rose.

Again it drained a good amount of stamina of Mr. Berlusconi to not shout, ”Fuck you! Fuck YOU!”

Instead,”Shame on you, shame on you!” while waggling a fat accusing finger at the protesters. He thought it must look pretty good on the television, so he went on to add a harried look upon his face to give that extra zing to the effect.

He didn’t interrupt his own speech until he ended it. Then stepping down the dais, he mingled with his fellow Milanese people, signed autographs, kissed babies (on the forehead that is), waved to his supporters when all of a sudden…

WHAM!!

He clutched his nose, his senses going berserk at seeing the blood spurt, but he kept his cool and did not shout out in agony because on TV it would have been uncool. He saw Sirius Dogstar, Alpha Centauri, and then the Orion one by one. Some aides grabbed him and put him inside his car.

And as he drove away, he thought to himself, ”What a horrible day it has turned out to be, oh Mamma!”

Jay Maharashtra!

I woke up with a dull, throbbing pain in my right temple, realising almost simultaneously with a pang that I had missed my fourth economics lecture in a row. Couldn’t have possibly made matters any better, or what was more probable, worse, therefore after having attended to the early morning niceties, I plopped on my double bed and propped up against the soft pillow, letting out a luxurious yawn while spreading out the progeny of the Fourth Estate that was the Mumbai Mirror.

The picture on the front page evoked several reactions from me.

I was flabbergasted.

I was jealous.

It felt like I had been beguiled.

An iMac.

A fucking iMac.

I felt as if I would get overwhelmed by the fact that he had bought one.

I, a staunch follower of the Maharashtra Navnirmaan Sena; I, a hardcore Marathi Manhoos Manoos if there ever was one; I, an ardent advocate of their aesthetic, Ahims-ic agenda; had received a fatal jumbo-jolt out of the blue.

The dots could be connected in a following manner.

iMac is a product of Apple, a company in USA. Its founder’s name is Steve Job, also from USA. USA, the country which boasts of rampant prostitution, is allegedly a war monger, deals with drug trafficking, throws its weight around more than is necessary, is aggravating to say the least.

It isn’t the aforementioned debauchery that we detest.

It is just that they are Western.

It’s just that they can’t teach their women to dress decently, and the respectable women in Indian households choose to emulate their disgraceful example.

Pisses us off.

The reason of my befuddlement was simple enough. If we went about blowing our trumpet of our non-existence of any sort of harmony with the Non-Marathi Manooses, including any of their property, products, money, women, alcohol etcetera, why the hell did Mr. Raj Thackeray purchase a Personal Computer that had its cursed origins in a Western country?

I was pained, wronged, betrayed. I dropped the paper as series of shocks rippled through my anatomy. I struggled to come to terms with the act and tried to ascertain why he would have perpetrated such a heinous backstabbing when the laser of realisation severed through my foggy cognisance.

No Marathi Manoos had, until now, indigenously manufactured any model that was even remotely fit to give the iMac a run for its money.

Succeeding this awareness came a sense of despair. And then purpose.

After a few hours of perseverance and dogged determination, I was ready with this product. Drawing a corollary from the tale of King Midas, the iMac had become as pristine a Marathi product as could possibly get upon my, a proud Maharashtrian’s, sheer contact of the hand.

Having the ditto configuration, the precise sleekness of its look, the specifications to give the same satisfaction, this one would make Raj Thackeray proclaim, “Mogambo Khush Hua!”

Priced at just Rs.1000 more than the original price of the iMac, I unleash the new…

IMah!

Only one thing remains to be done now. Informing him that such a product exists.

Takers, anyone?

P.S. :- Many a thanks to dear Rajjo for exclusive pics of iMah. The ingenious soul contributed a lot towards its conception.

Suggestions on Sale, 100% off!

(This conversation features the likes of Mr.G and Shadri, wherein Mr. G  endeavors to ask Shadri to suggest some names for his band. He, however, fails to get the slightest premonition that 19 minutes of his life were going to go waste in the most futile, uncreative, ineffectual manner ever seen before. Mr. G, when I asked him later, confided that he would have rather watched Drona for that length of time than have had this unproductive parley.

Meanwhile, I stay indebted to Mr. G for having shared and allowed me to share with you, this.)

15:44  Mr. G : more nams
seshu007: lol
u didnt like my suggestions

15:45 Mr. G: give naa
seshu007: The Rock Paper and Scissors Band
this is nice
Mr. G: why so?

15:46 seshu007: doesnt it sound nice
what kind of band is it

15:47 Mr.G: hindi band
so a hindi name would be better
seshu007: ya
correct

15:48 Yeh Andar Ki Baat Hai
Mr.G: ?

15:49 seshu007: Band of BOys
Mr.G: Chemical Frenzy
seshu007: Rastein

15:50 Mr. G: owing to the fact that 5 outa 7 members are from chem dep
Raastein?
seshu007: ya
Mr.G: hmm
seshu007: hindi for a way or a road
its quite a nice name
Mr.G: i know u fool
yeah
but too common

15:51 seshu007: is it
Mr.G: doesnt serve a purpose
seshu007: it depends on why you are formng the band

15:52 Mr.G: entertainment
fun
friendship
MoodI
passion for music
seshu007: Khud Kushi
(not suicide)

15:53 more like happiness for yourself
Mr.G: faart
maxx

15:55 seshu007: FUMO
Mr.G: ?
seshu007: ( For Us Music Only)
Mr.G: hindi dude

15:56 seshu007: Sangeetkariyaan
Mr.G: ok stop
thanks for the help
seshu007: lol
if i think of something nice ill tell you
Mr.G: thanks

15:57 seshu007: i think it shud be sangeetkariyon
Mr.G: i think u should explain what the fuck does that mean
seshu007: oh … its hindi for music players
people who create music

16:00 MAD
Mr.G: Music and
?
seshu007: (music Aur Dosti)

16:01 Mr.G: hmm
maybe
seshu007: or SAD
Mr.G: oh nice
seshu007: (Sangeet Aur Dosti)

16:02 this is a little double meaning type one
JEEt
Mr.G: ah
full form

16:03 seshu007: nothing
jeet is to win
Mr.G: oh
seshu007: and JEE
Mr.G: ok

Saala ek Macchar Aadmi ko…

Louie hu mein,

Beemari jab failaoo,

Gol-gol khillauno se khelna main chahu,

Jaise *Ball, aur *Mosquito Coil!!”

Note:- * are mere figments of a corroding imagination and a memory going down the Alzheimer lane.

This piece of composition created by one of the brightest minds in the world went on to win numerous accolades and adulation, including mine, of course. I was a bloke studying in the fifth (or was it the sixth?) grade when I first saw the commercial and became an admirer faster than Astatine-217 disintegrates. Louie, at that time, seemed an affable, suave, even lovable character. I still remember the smouldering looks of approval from my grade 6 (or 5?) crush among others of the fairer sex as I, with my voice not yet matured enough to render songs in a baritone, crooned the above flawlessly, with two of my pals giving me company for the chorus. The completion saw me taking a bow before the peers.

Times have changed, and its abruptness is palpably conspicuous.

IIT Bombay, as others may not know, is a jungle (not the kind you see in Ram Gopal Varma’s movies, at least they have ONE sexy siren among the Teaks and the Seshams, be it Urmila or Nisha Kothari) wherein you hear rumours of a panther or an alligator sighting almost every other day. However, there is an organism among the myriad ones mentioned whose sightings aren’t rumours, they are facts testified by every damn IITian who sees their wraithlike manifestations every damn time every-fucking-where.

They are the Motherfucking Mosquitoes.

There are approximately 100 different flying leeches of the Anopheles variant, the ones who carry the plasmodium whatchamacallits in their stomachs and vomit them as soon as they penetrate with their proboscis, violating our skin’s modesty. These sonofabitches strike anytime they please, anywhere they think prudent. Each member of the student community swears aloud once he/she gets victimised by these small, agile, confounded creatures.

Look at how small, helpless, desolate it looks, except for that one sting that makes all the difference. That, in fact, is the Spear of Satan, a weapon of mass destruction that does not kill, but tortures. They harass your unassuming selves by biting you around the clock, and if somehow the Almighty has made your hide comparable to that of a river horse on account of which you remain unperturbed, they whizz past your ears, driving you reckless, raving mad. Even the thought of Dracula gulping down blood from my veins doesn’t scare me more than these guys do.

Here inside the insti, one of their favourite haunts is the Bhavani Juice Centre. This juice centre caters to a large faction, and the mosquitoes here are not only numerous but enormous. As soon as you order a drink and loiter about as it is being prepared, the army arrives and before you know you are reeling under an attack. It starts with a minor itching on your arms. Then legs. The indiscriminate need to scratch everywhere foists your brain into a state of imbroglio. You don’t even notice when it was exactly that you started to dance the primitive Samba.

However, their favourite watering hole is the washroom, colloquially referred to as the Hostel’s Haggu. Whether you are shitting, pissing, shaving, or clearing your throat, they show no mercy. The moment you are proceeding with an extremely intricate part of the shaving process, one of ‘em comes and does it, drawing blood from two places. The rest of the process has to be handled while performing the Onelegasaana, scratching one leg with the other.

Another incident occurred when I was shitting. The Haggu of our wing contains 1 Western and 4 Indian style shitpots. Some crackhead jackass in a fit of vandalism demolished the bolt of the only Western shitpot. I, a connoisseur of the Western commode, had no option but to do the job in the Indian one.

Western has the added advantage that it shields your bum from mosquitoes; your legs are your own look out. The Indian style offers no such respite. Your bums are exposed to the entire population, hanging there tantalisingly like a melon cleaved in half stinking like shit. It was while I was washing the filth when one came along and smooched one of my arsecheeks.

The itchy pain Oh Holy Mother of Christ!

The reader can well imagine why I couldn’t simply scratch it away.

The tensions run high. During the semester examinations, professors take an equal share of abuses along with mosquitoes.  Even the Hundred Year’s War wasn’t long enough to match the ongoing battle between Humans and Mosquitoes. I go on to state that on Judgement Day, it won’t be the Artificial Intelligence Robots, but Mosquitoes we shall be battling. All the All-outs and Morteins aren’t enough to quell their ever expanding populace.

The war wages in all its ferocity, which could be judged from the following excerpt.

Scene:- Couple of students hanging out in a mate’s room, when the door opens and a student pilfers in excitedly.

“ I killed a fucking mosquito with my legs!” Says he, holding out the dead remnants as a showpiece.

“NO WAY!”

“Yes buddy…it was right there, on my right ankle….right here… I thought if I bent down to kill it precious microseconds would be wasted…moreover the bastard might have escaped…so I just took my left leg and splat!”

“Whooooaaaaaaaa maaaaan!!! You are the dude!!” said someone, while someone Hi-5-ed the warhero.

“Super cool!”

Finally, there remains to be shared a video file I came across while doing research for this article. A very popular one, it reflects my state of mind as of others too.

May the Human Race emerge triumphant in this conflict and thrash any hopes of the motherfuckers for world domination…

Amen…

The Farce (Reincarnated)

Disclaimer:-

All the characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental and it shall not be the responsibility of the author if anyone feels he/she is being referred to and goes ballistic.

The room, that day, was adorned with the presence of Rohan, Khandelwaal and Chikna, Haridwar making the plastic chair auspicious with the sheer contact of his blissful butt with the material, when the door suddenly burst in and ricocheted off the wall, the hinges creaking ominously.

Mr. G had just come in, and with his arrival the sanctity of Room No. 311 augmented hundredfold. He had had, apparently, a very bad day.

I guffawed in mirthful mockery. “Ha ha,  Man U sucks!”

“Liverpool is chutiya. But ManU was a fart today man. They didn’t deserve to win.”

“They  are fart all the time. It’s just that your nasal cavity is too blocked to detect the stink.” Said Chikna, rendering another one of his fart jokes in the air. Rohan and Khandelwaal acknowledged it.Mr. G and I sat discussing the minutiae of the match, while Chikna rendered some more of his FJ’s.  Out of the blue Rohan asked, “Oe what were those girls from H10 doing here in the pool room?”

“They have made some sort of a band. Fuck ‘em man.”

“Band?” said Khandelwaal.

“Band? That lot were up shit’s creek in the Freshie Band competition.” Remarked an incredulous I.

“Yeah man.” Said Mr. G, “whereas we have a phodu band ready to give them a run for their money. Only if Skanda didn’t have his quiz tomorrow. Fuck man, it’s a shitty day.”

“Hey, last I heard they needed a guitarist for today’s practises.” Said Haridwar.

“Why don’t you go then?” said Khandelwaaal.

“I am just a beginner yaar. And I have got a girlfriend.”

“Fair enough.” Said I.

“Bissu why don’t you?” asked Rohan.

“I don’t even attend those fucking classes buddy. I am still a long way off. If there is anybody here in the hostel who is decent enough to go it’s you.” Said I, gesturing towards Mr. G.

“Naah man…..”

And then, as time seemed suspended for an infinitesimal fraction of a second, he mouthed those lines…

“A guitarist of my stature wouldn’t like to be associated with them.”

And with the repartee, the curtain fell (or rather, the door banged.)

1 hour later…

(Here, the readers are encouraged to enhance their powers of envisioning situations, and imagine the above as you might have beheld in a Bollywood movie as the prologue or epilogue. Or rather, when upon the celluloid sex is depicted by nudging two marigolds close together which is followed by the line ‘Nau maheene Baad”, and the wailing cacophony of a brat in a make believe maternity ward invariably succeeds and reverberates aggravatingly.)

Anyways…

1 hour later…

Chikna was sprawled on my bed, watching ‘My Sassy Girl’, on my laptop, wearing my noise isolation earbuds, while I pretended to solve Maths Tution sheets besides. Haridwaar had dropped off to sleep.  Rohan and Khandelwaal had made a quite exit before. Gulti didn’t flinch when the door slammed open again, and Mr.G made his Hagrid-ey appearance veritable again.

“Where’s the pick?” said he.

“Dunno, ask him.”

Haridwaar, it seemed was feigning sleep.

“It’s inside the cupboard.” Said he.

“Why this sudden craving to strum strings?” enquired the inquisitive I.

“I am playing with ‘em…” said he, as he searched for the plectrum.

“ ’em?” said I, and then I understood.

“It’s only for today yaar.”

“Yaa I understand perfectly.”

He had found the plectrum, and without another word he rushed out…