by Pawan Mishra
Daya was getting restless by now. “Enough of his background; come to the main story now. To hell with his job! How does it matter to us whether he had a good job or not, whether his stomach was full or if he remained hungry? I am still trying to digest the thought of these people being childhood friends when they didn’t meet even once. Or did I hear it incorrectly?”
“Slow down, asshat.” Panna’s alcohol was making him more combative than usual. “You know jack shit about telling a story. Is there any fun in a story until what is necessary is told? Anyone bugs me once more, I am not continuing.”
He paused for a few seconds, trying hard to look at the faces, wondering if it was low light or alcohol that caused his sight to dim.
“So, as I was saying, Sandy was not exactly the guy you could count on for getting a decent job to support his family, but he was a guy anyone could trust in all matters. In the matters of love, he would do anything for his lover, anything that was in his capability.”
“How much of the story have we heard up to now?” Daya could not keep quiet.
“What do you mean?” Panna’s eyes emitted embers.
“I mean have we hit at least ten percent completion of the story yet?”
“Why would you want to know that?”
“To know in advance how much more of this joyride is still left.” A wide chuckle followed this, vexing Panna even more.
“I’m not going to complete the story. Not a word more. You guys simply don’t deserve it.”
“Complete surrender to the holy feet of Lord Panna. Forgive our dumbness,” cried Daya, bowing his head toward the middle of the table in Panna’s direction with both hands far stretched. “Please do not ruin us by leaving the wonderful story unfinished.”
Everyone laughed madly.
In the history of their friendship, Panna’s stories had never been able to escape a premature death. There was an unspoken agreement among the other three that, since Panna did not really have a full story to tell, it was their moral responsibility to cause him to digress before he had to face the embarrassment of not being able to finish the story.
They drank in silence again.
A small uproar occurred at the adjacent table. The group sitting at the table was preparing to leave after paying the check. Sevak almost fell to the side trying to defy the surrounding darkness to seize the last opportunity to have a look at the female whose charming voice had kept him guessing.
“O woman, thou art my imperfection,” Sevak sighed to the gang, as the door closed behind the leaving group.
“Control thy libido, control thy libido,” Hukum said, and laughed aloud.
Sevak saw an opportunity in this pause to put a thought across that he’d wanted to share with the gang for a long time.
“Here is an interesting thought that keeps crossing my mind,” he said. “Let me supply the context first. Most of us have had single-gender education, a pre-birth death of the training to enhance our social skills. What was supposed to be a training ground for learning tricks of the love trade had turned into madness for test scores and greater academic orientation. I can never forgive the government for not thinking about this. Had these government people, whose stomachs get ballooned by some mysterious power, not experienced the same void in their young years? Then why did they not commiserate with us and change the system?”
“Sevak, do not let emotion manipulate the lovely tale that you are telling. You seem to have digressed from what you really wanted to tell us.” Hukum spoke like a scholar again. “Many storytellers with possibly more potential than Shakespeare, even though I have not read much of him, could not hit much fame because they treated their stories like their wives. Rather than limiting the emotion only to flirting with their stories, they married them, thus limiting their chances of experimenting.”
“Hukum, I get your point,” Sevak said, “But don’t you feel as pissed off as I do by single-gender schooling on the bogus grounds of social effect, moral education, and academic performance?”
“Sevak is opening up today,” said Daya, smiling. “The disappointment caused by those million romantic hopes, hitherto hidden forcefully, has finally managed to leap from its grave.”
“The sporadic parade of your intelligence really impresses me at times, pal,” said Sevak teasingly, wanting to irk Daya. He gulped the rest of his drink as he spoke, and raised the empty glass in the air, hinting to the waiter for a refill.
This tested Daya’s volatility, and proved that alcohol reduces the boiling point. “This surpasses the limit of ridicule I must allow from you, Sevak. You have to apologize to me.”
“Apologize for what?”
“For your misbehavior.”
“I was only praising your intelligence.” Sevak was barely able to keep from laughing.
“One tight slap at your temple, and I am sure a ‘sorry’ would come out rushing from your mouth without a second’s delay,” Daya teased back.
“What are we arguing here?” asked Hukum, losing his patience.
As Panna was about to answer, his cell phone rang, and he picked up, said hello, and shouted after recognizing the voice, “Which tunnel of the world have you been putting up in? Are you still alive? Well, you must be, as you are talking to me. I need to kick your butt—” The other party hung up before Panna could complete the last sentence.
As Panna put his phone back in his pocket, Hukum turned to him. “What? Why do you look so perturbed? Has your sister eloped with her high-school sweetheart?”
Panna did not answer.
Hukum said, “That’s why I say, never have an intellectual sort of conversation while drinking. That’s not an economical business proposition. The elaborate application of mind drains the alcohol before it does its job.”
“What about Coinman? We completely lost track. How do we teach him a lesson?” Sevak reminded everyone.
“Thank you for reminding us. I had completely forgotten about that. That topic needs some time. Please grant me five more minutes before starting on that topic.” Hukum stood. “I need to go to the restroom as fast as I can.”
“Hero,” Hukum called to one of the waiters, “I need to offer a sacred water sacrifice at the porcelain altar. Can you guide me to the altar? Of course, only till the door.”
“I am sorry, sir, the lavatory is undergoing renovation currently. It’s not usable,” The waiter said in single breath. He seemed to have had good practice saying it to many others that evening.
“Seriously! Have you had a look at yourself in the mirror recently? Wasn’t it you who needed a renovation instead of the lavatory?” Hukum said angrily. “Go and check again. I am sure you are mistaken. No one can just play around with such an important place without establishing an alternative first.” He then turned to his gang and said, “Absolutely ridiculous! Which planet are we on? Jokes apart, I think in general the lavatories in the bars have not claimed particular affection from the management. Some sort of a national reform movement is needed to improve their condition across the country. I would even suggest—”
The waiter interrupted, “I am very sure about it, sir. I work here and know every inch of this place. In fact, I myself have been going over to a place outside. To tell you the truth, I have even been consuming less water than usual, fearing frequent visits to that faraway place.”
“Do you have any idea what I am going through right now?” Hukum cried. “The more I involve myself in your dumbass conversation, the worse I get. I need your manager. Right at this moment. Why are you still standing here confusedly? I haven’t even mentioned your mother yet. Go, and bring your manager. I can’t dare a move.”
“Don’t speak anymore, Hukum,” advised Daya in a brotherly fashion, then cried to the waiter, “What will it take us, honorable sir, to make you run and get your manager here? Are we not speaking your language?”
“Daya, calm down. I will talk to him,” said Sevak, tapping at Daya’s shoulder, fearing Daya would get down to manhandling the wai
ter soon.
“Dumbbells addicted to forceful persuasions do not submit to the way of talking,” said Daya, starting to roll up his sleeves.
“Someone save me. Oh, God, which earlier incarnation of my soul deserved this revenge that erroneously fell on this one?” cried Hukum in discomfort.
The waiter was back with the manager.
“What is it, fellas?” the manager asked.
“Don’t you ‘fellas’ us. Our troubled friend needs to bless your restroom with holy water at this very moment. Are you helping? Yes or no?” Panna took the lead.
“No.” The manager was curt.
“Why did you give him an option of ‘no’ in the first place?” Sevak muttered, irritated with Panna.
“Sevak, my condition is fast approaching Hukum’s. I am trying to speak as little as possible. Can you take this conversation forward?”
“Yes, sure,” said Sevak with pride; he wasn’t generally given an opportunity to lead the pack. “Mr. Manager, can we know the reason behind that ‘no’ from your inhospitable mouth?”
“I am sure you are already informed, sir, there is renovation going on at this point,” the manager said calmly.
“And why would you not think of an alternate place for the lavatory? Being in the business, you must be aware how impatient alcohol is to rush to the exit door as soon as it finishes its job on the mind and the heart?”
“That was a mistake, and I apologize in the most sincere manner.”
“An apology isn’t enough.”
“What else can we do, sir?”
“Come to the point, bug-lovers,” cried Panna, “or else we all will be in deep shit like me, and we all will need damn stretchers in the next five minutes.”
“We don’t have stretchers here, sir,” the manager was quick to clarify.
“I know it’s not a fucking hospital! Or, maybe it is. Look at us. Don’t we all look like patients writhing in pain? Daya, where does your encyclopedic live? I am going to personally visit him first thing tomorrow morning to punch in his face for sending us to a hospital instead of a bar!” Panna was losing it.
“Speak of an alternate place.” Sevak understood they couldn’t afford a drift in conversation any longer.
“That’s far away from here, some eight hundred meters.”
“Arrange a cab for us, and two people to help us transfer Panna and Hukum to the car, and then from car to the restroom.”
“A car is not even a distant possibility. We do not keep a car. In fact, none of us even has a personal car. These are bad times for the alcohol-serving industry. Margins are falling.”
“Guys, we have professor of economics here. I was wasting my fucking time thinking he was the manager. Daya, please get this settled with him. I can’t speak for long now,” Sevak said, holding the lower part of his stomach.
Daya stood up immediately in excitement, but forgot in the next moment what to say or do. Just as a whale disappears in the sea after surfacing, the idea in his head had disappeared completely in less than a second. So in an attempt to do something, he went to the counter and brought back an empty bottle.
“How about this? Why fritter away the time when each second is so costly? Take this and go to some corner here. I can get one bottle for each one of you for the hygiene factor.” Then he turned to the manager. “Sir, can you provide us a closed room?”
“Not for this.”
“Only for five minutes.”
“Not even for a second.”
“Then suggest some place nearby.”
“Go outside, take a left, take the first left, then take another left, bow down to the big teak tree, and release. You can keep the bottles, and please do not pick up anything again without asking us about it.”
“Three lefts, one after other,” Panna was calculating, “are you sure we are not going to go round this building to come back on the right-hand side?”
“That’s another option. You can just take a right from the door and will hit the same place on the corner.”
Hukum ground his teeth and flailed his fist in the air, pretending to punch the manager’s face.
“We must not waste a second,” said Daya, who was going to join the club any moment. He immediately paid for the drinks.
All of them slowly walked outside. “We will settle with him after we release,” said Panna, grinding his teeth.
Several other tables had asked for checks after hearing the whole argument.
As the gang returned after emptying their bladders, they ensured that the manager remembered them for the rest of his life—for they swore at him like no one else could.
10. The Serendipitous Concert
“The sun must have risen in the west this morning,” thought Saarang, when he found a short note from Tulsi on his desk, beneath a file:
This Friday, 12:30 p.m., outside the office, at Barulay’s Lunch Café…alone. Mum’s the word.
—Tulsi Anand
Overjoyed that his attempts had finally worked, he couldn’t contain himself for long. His triumph showed all over him in his conspicuous countenance of glee.
He read the note several times to ascertain his emotional fluctuations hadn’t led him to miss a word. He shoved the note in his trouser pocket because it was dangerous, with wolves around, to put the note in his shirt’s translucent pocket; someone might’ve snatched it and read it to the world!
A gift for the occasion is essential, he thought. Hukum’s recent poem on Coinman had assured him about the success of his own writing, if he ever tried seriously. If a muscleman like Hukum can write a poem, anyone can. Besides, there can’t be a better romantic gift than a lovely handwritten poem.
That evening, once home, he embarked on a rugged odyssey with his pen. Despite skipping dinner and working till the wee hours, he was annoyed with the results: his writing sounded so shallow. Quite a disappointment.
Frustrated and exhausted, he fell asleep in the morning to time-travel to William Wordsworth’s house to learn how to write a perfect romantic poem. An old man of about seventy greeted him at the door, showed him his library located in the corner of the house, and inquired at length about Tulsi. Saarang made a mental note to let gossipmongers know that Tulsi’s popularity had even made it to Wordsworth. Such was her glory!
The old man asked, “How long do you want the poem to be?”
Saarang thought hard and replied, “Neither too short nor too long.”
At that the old man looked at one of his bookshelves, took out a dusty book with a completely faded cover, placed it on the study table, and asked Saarang to read the fifth chapter and determine which poem in that chapter came closest to his requirements.
To his shock, as Saarang turned the first page, the words slowly transformed into small cylinders, except for one-letter words, which preferred being spheres, and started rolling toward the vertical edges of the book. Black in color and bronze in texture, the words rolled off the sides to form a pile on the floor. That made these pages completely blank. It was not clear if it was the exposure to light or to his eyes that caused the words to desert the pages.
Saarang collected the cylinders and circles from the floor carefully and tried to put them back on the two pages, in desperate hope that they would resume their wordly state, but they rolled down again. He looked up to see that Mr. Wordsworth had shrugged in helplessness. Saarang turned the page, only to encounter the same situation again. So he asked Mr. Wordsworth if he could borrow a digital camera to trap the words quickly next time before they turned into spheres and circles. Mr. Wordsworth explained that digital cameras weren’t in use yet.
Saarang ran outside Mr. Wordsworth’s house and fetched a digital camera from his car. He got the writer to turn the page for him, so that he could snap a picture quickly. To his horror, as he looked at the picture, the words were captured in a half-transitioned state. He tried to take a picture several times, as the writer continued to help open a new page every time, but couldn’t capture any legible
text. At this his mind became so troubled that he woke up.
The dream, however, left him with an idea. That morning he skipped the office and searched the town library for the ten greatest Romantic poets of all time. There were, as he figured, several “top ten” lists available. He noticed that four poets, including Mr. Wordsworth, were featured on all the lists, and brought some of their work back home.
Discerning meanings in some of these, however, was difficult. Why are the acclaimed romantic poems always so obscure to understand?
Still he persevered, and read a couple of relatively simple poems several times before he came up with his own version:
O thy beauty,
The divine loveliness,
Sacred like a holy cow,
Fresh like a basil leaf,
It’s only you
To whom the gods bow.
The thunderstruck we
Love dying,
When you execute us
With the knife of elegance,
And free us
From worldly woes.
A woman is art,
An aesthetic creation,
And you are the ruler
Of such creations;
You possess everything,
The best they have.
Each time he read the poem, he became more satisfied with his work. He even pondered the possibility of leaving his mundane office job and developing a career as a poet.
But even as he considered himself done with the poem, he remembered that bad luck comes in threes.
Good heavens, I may have been digging my own grave! If I present her three stanzas, I am surely headed for disaster.
