The Nothing Place

We found a nothing place. Pretty, but nothing, and no prettier than other nothing places. It had hills and trees and a bit of a river, but nothing much of note beyond that. There was no real reason to stop but we had none to continue either. There was weariness, however, so we decided to stay the night. Next morning, our reasons stood unchanged, but hunger had struck. The light of day showed that the Nothing Place trees were laden with fruit. Later in the day we found fish in the river. With nothing pressing us to move on we stayed another night, prepared to spend tomorrow like today.

With the passing of the moons came other travelers. They found us still at the Nothing Place. There was enough for everyone so they decided to stay. Knowing no better, we befriended them. We gave them our daughters and took theirs for our sons. Their children liked the fruit, and in time the fish as well. On these, they grew well and quickly and soon had children of their own, and they their own. We spread to corners of the Nothing Place we had never been to before, building our circular huts where we went.

As our numbers swelled, our elders’ warnings grew louder. “Move on,” they said, “find another home. For one day the fruit will run out and the fish will be dead.” None among us had any desire to leave. However, being unused to disregarding the word of the elders, we began looking for an answer to satisfy them. We had always seen fruit being born from trees but one day one among us turned back the time of a tree, making one from a fruit. We were wonder struck at first but before long we all knew how it was done. We each planted our own trees, surrounding our circular huts with saplings. Spring came and the trees did not disappoint, bearing fruit beyond our wildest imaginations. But it wasn’t just fruit. It was an answer to our elders’ needless warnings, the power to grow our own fruit. We could now live at the Nothing Place forever, never having to go looking for food again.

That year, we ate to our heart’s content, and we gifted the fruit of the Nothing Place to every traveler who happened by, and we ate some more, we even fed some to our pets, but there was still far too much fruit for us. In the end, we let go of the extra fruit, letting it lie in heaps under the trees, to rot away as it would. The elders, given to issuing one warning or the other, chastised us for such waste. We would invite the wrath of the Gods for so insulting their gifts, they said, and it would be our final undoing. The warnings were just as well, we ourselves believed the fruit could be put to better use.

Next year, at the break of spring, we heaped the fruit onto carts we had made over the winter for this very purpose. Losing not a moment, we set out with our fruit to all surrounding lands. Owing to the word of travelers, our fruit was already famous and there were few who had not heard lore of its tender deliciousness. As soon as we would reach the locals’ market places, they would gather around our carts, and before the crowd cleared, all the fruit would be gone. In return, we bartered what they had to offer. Wood, stone, grain, they would give us what they could. We would load it onto our carts and return to the Nothing Place.

None of the fruit was wasted in this year. If anything, we had less than enough to sell to everyone who wanted to buy some. We grew even more the next year, and we took our carts even further, but the story remained the same – they wanted more than we had to sell. Year after year, we grew ever increasing amounts of fruit and sold to an ever widening circle of lands. Anyone who ate any wanted more, till the day he died, such was the legend of our fruit. And of course, there were so many who we had yet get their first taste.

Even though all of us worked with the fruit, it was all we did, we were still short handed to meet the persistently overwhelming demand. We invited hands from adjoining lands to come work with us. We paid them in return for their labours, our vast earnings covering wages more than adequately. They would come just as the winter thawed, work on our fields all the way till spring, then help us carry the fruit far and wide over the summer, before returning to their homes, till they were needed again the following year. They came in large groups and they multiplied our ability to produce fruit. With no end in sight for how much fruit we could sell, how much we produced was now limited only by how many workers we had. So our doors were always open for industrious hands that needed work. If ever there were more workers than there was fruit to tend, and such a situation arose but rarely, we would simply lay down another patch, because too much fruit was never enough. Those who worked at the Nothing Place almost never sought work elsewhere. We knew how to hold on to our workers. Our unsaid motto, “Pay enough for them to work, but not enough to skip work the following day.”

The presence of the migrants allowed us original residents of the Nothing Place something we’d never had before; leisure. While these simple souls worked our fields at their meager price, we had little need to toil ourselves. We now supervised and instructed, only making sure our army of workers was doing as directed while we watched the gold roll in, which by now was the only thing we accepted in return for our fruit.

We put our newfound time and money to good use. We travel the world, going further from our homeland than anyone ever has from theirs. We bring back wonders from the far reaches and put them up in our squares, symbols of our shining glory. We build and rebuild the Nothing Place, till our city is almost as famous as our fruit, its spires visible from ten leagues away. Our fruit now travels on rails, our carts now move on their own, our children speak only in music. We lay roads for travel and wires for communication. Our river is littered with the finest vessels known to man, as many for pleasure as for industry. None for fishing, for the fish ran out long ago. Our circular homes grow larger and more luxurious, made from precious marbles and rare chalks.

Even so, it is still called the Nothing Place. We don’t change the name, the irony of it amuses us. 

As always, there are those who don’t approve of the celebration of our glory. In particular, those who spent their prime without such pleasures ward against them. “Work is worship”, they say, “this God-less-ness will let our devils loose.” We pause only a moment to ignore such doomsday wailings before returning to the task of meeting our glorious destiny.

All this while, we still rely on migrants to lay the bricks in our grand plans. We need them all year now. When they aren’t tending fruit, they’re building our mansions, manning our boats, cleaning our streets. They still occupy the eastern ‘corner’, though it is now the largest part of the city, and also its most crowded. The migrants’ conical huts now number too many to be counted. It is an infinite swarm of humanity and looks much like it did when the migrants first came in, while much larger and dirtier. Those among the migrants who’ve done well for themselves want to improve how they live. They want to build permanent homes, sanitation, parks and streets. No matter where they come from, sooner or later they think of the Nothing Place as home, its eastern corner anyway. Their visits to their ‘homelands’ are now short annual affairs, to keep from forgetting them altogether. While we’re the locals and they the migrants, they outnumber us easily, and each year their numbers swell even more.

A few councilmen think we should let the migrants have what they want, let them build permanent homes and start becoming a part of the legend of the Nothing Place. “They’ve been our brothers in these fruitful fortunes,” the councilmen argue, “there’s no justification for our step motherly treatment of them. Let them become real citizens of the Nothing Place, they deserve better.”

Such voices are but a small minority and the rest of us will have nothing of it. We’ve worked hard to make the Nothing Place what it is and we have no intention of gifting away what is rightfully ours. This greatness is the product of the industry, acumen, and ingenuity of our people. What have the migrants done to be heirs to this splendor? For centuries, they’ve done our bidding like mindless automatons, plucking and tending fruit. Unimaginative tasks for which they’ve been compensated well. Our wages have always been better than they could get elsewhere, which explains why they’ve flocked here year after year. If there was anything that was unfair, it was them laying claim to the Nothing Place as though we owed them more than the wages they’d happily taken from us over the centuries. The mason doesn’t own the architect’s house.

There is no time for such nonsense, especially in the light of what currently has our attention. For the first time in memory, perhaps the first time ever, our fruit has come back unsold. What could possibly be the reason, we wonder. The migrants, whose homelands are our markets, give us the answer. Other places aren’t doing so well, they tell us. With most of their able bodied workers working at the Nothing Place, they have little output of their own. They have scarce enough to buy grain, let alone fruit. We flirt with the idea of dropping prices to enable sales but soon we decide to drop the idea, not our prices. We can’t be shortsighted in our dealings. Lower prices today and we may never be able to raise them again. Our fruit is only the best and the finest, to sell it like grain would be blasphemy. We hold on to our fruit, refusing to sell till we can get our price again.

We are only as concerned by the situation as we are amused. Generations of gold ensure that one bad year can pass by unnoticed. In the absence of the trade, we occupy ourselves with sport, music, theatre, everything we may have been too busy for otherwise. Everything to do with fruit is put on hold for the moment. Picking, sorting, packing, shipping, all of it is at a standstill. The unsold fruit lies in silos, waiting for its time. It can stay there for months without rotting, but even if it does spoil, that is preferable to selling it cheaply.

For the migrants, where there is no work there are no wages. Hordes of displaced workers are soon seen looking for work all over the city. There is none to be had, the way things are. “Go home to your native lands while things tide over,” we tell them, “no time like now.” Turns out the migrants have barely enough to feed themselves, vacations are out of question. Within weeks their requests for work turn to demands. They gather in large groups asking to be re-employed. They will soon start dying of hunger, they claim. “Where are your savings?” we ask them, “Have you been foolish enough to keep nothing for a rainy day? None of us are drawing salaries either.”

Weeks turn to months and their demands soon turn to protests, “Sell the fruit! Put us to work!” their hoardings read, “Serve our needs, not your greeds.” We hold out against these demands till the protests turn violent. Public buildings near the eastern corner are set to fire, a dock we use for our boats is destroyed.

An emergency meeting of the council is called. Those in the meeting who have seen the eastern corner recently say matters there are truly dire. People are hungry, and diseases of malnourishment are running amok. “We may not want them as citizens, but are we cruel enough to let them starve to death?” asks one. “They are now hungry animals with nothing to lose,” says another, “if we do nothing, they will burn us all.” Begrudgingly, we agree to do what we can to help the migrants. It is decided to sell the fruit at the price available. The silos will be opened the following morning itself.

The unrest stops once the decision is public. Before daybreak the following morning, workers have returned to their stations. Sorting, packing, loading, unloading, the boats, are all staffed with more hands than could possibly be needed, each eager to earn a day’s wage. The silos are finally opened a little after sunrise.

It is too late, the fruit has rotted away, all of it. There’s nothing left to be sold. With their hopes dashed anew, the workers’ break out into a spontaneous riot. The councilman overseeing the opening of the silos is lynched by the angry mob, buildings all around are razed to the ground. The law and order force comes down heavily on the rioters to clear the area. The rioters disperse and a vigil in enforced around the city. No one is allowed on the streets. The law and order force patrols in full strength.

An uneasy calm lasts through the day. We are terrified by the events of the morning. Despite the vigil, we all know if the migrants do decide to run riot, they will far outnumber everyone else. Evening comes, and there have been no further incidents. We breathe a sigh of relief. Perhaps the worst is behind us.

The dead of night changes everything, and our worst fears are confirmed. The migrants enter the city bearing torches. And they are not alone. Thousands from their native lands have poured into the city. Their purpose has a singular clarity. They want the city, and the blood of their masters. Our blood. They storm in, torches aflame. They overrun the vigil in a heartbeat, by the sheer strength of numbers. Then they begin their pogrom. Street by street, building by building, they loot, destroy and murder. They take our houses, offices, public buildings, schools, theatres. What they cannot take, they burn. Soon the banks are broken into, and they get their hands on the gold. They also capture what they most want, the fields of fruit, more valuable than any gold.

They round up hundreds of citizens in the squares, and set them ablaze. There is no line they will not cross, no atrocity they won’t commit. We flee from the city as fast as we can, heading for the hills. Thousands upon thousands don’t make it, either killed in the streets, or burnt in their homes. While we die, the migrants cheer. “Death to the oppressors,” they shriek, “death, death, death!”

The carnage continues for days before it is over. We watch from the hills onto the city below, as the fires first blaze, then die out. We watch as the migrants settle into the city, making it their home. They live in our mansions, reveling in the luxury they have usurped. Unused to a life a plenty, their extravagance exceeds what ours had ever been. Their celebrations are only majestic, and their finery only the finest. Jewels, yachts, rare art, they take to them like only the nouveau rich can. Centuries of gold lies in the Nothing Place, and its new citizens spend it with elan.

In a few months, however, it is planting season again. The migrants, eager for a fruit that will for the first time be their very own, put their energy and resources behind it. They plant aggressively and tend it carefully, waiting for spring, when their newfound wealth will multiply manifold.

Spring comes and goes, but the migrants’ wait never ends. There is no fruit, none at all. In a year of historic turns, this is but another. The land has provided us for millennia, but we still wanted more. Whatever it held that spawned season after season of our famous fruit has now run out. We’ve sucked it dry, it has nothing more to offer.

With heavy hearts the migrants realize that there will be no fruit, no multiplication of wealth. They realize that the gold that remains in the city is all there is, that there won’t be enough and more for everyone. These people had scarcely enough to eat till the previous year but now they start to fight with each other over jewels and gold. Once again, they kill and they murder, they burn and they steal. Migrants round up migrants, loot them of their possessions, they slaughter them and their families. Then the slaughterers meet those who do the same to them.

We watch from our circular huts on the hills as every part of the city starts to slowly burn. Seeing the fortunes of the migrants slipping, the time is opportune for our revenge, for us to win our city back. Arms have started gathering in our huts, plans for the attack are being drawn. Soon we will descend upon our city, though we have little idea how much of it still remains.

When we found this once, it was a nothing place. Long ago, it ceased to be nothing. It is the Nothing Place, and it is far worse. The land is barren, and the fish is over. What the earth won’t give, the men will snatch from each other, even till every last one is dead. Our efforts were true, our intentions good. How this came to be, I have not a clue.

Sanvesh and Sneha - A Sstory of Lust: Chapter 1

Story under reconstruction.

to be continued....

Crossroads

A saga of short lived fleeting fancies
A tale of shifting, unquenchable thirsts
Trapped in the hand-hollow a well meaning knight
Scarce aware when to craft, ne'er sure when to fight

The story of old

The maker of promises, the giver of gifts

One hundred friendships, set asail on a whim.
Your gold did not stand the minute hand's shifts
The wreck-dust abounds, hope of survival slim

Tripping: Chapter 3

This is part 3 of a series, scroll down for earlier parts

The incident in the car was a sure sign of things to come. The rest of the trip was to be dominated by the myriad ways of Gopaljee. It was obvious he had been up to much since we’d last met him in Kota. At every juncture on that trip, he surprised us with insights into what was, probably, now his life.

Take for instance the first night, when we went out to dinner at a place near our resort. Most of us had been introduced to alcohol in the year or so that we’d been in college but were still in the phase where we were eagerly gathering knowledge and experience around it. Gopalji however, was already learned in the matter. Or, at least, he seemed more and more so with every proclamation he made that night.

“Brandy is the illegitimate, and older, sibling of all whiskeys” he told us while still relatively sober.

A few drinks later, his views on marriage became public.

“Drink now guys, drink now like there’s no tomorrow. Once you get married, your wife will give away all your booze to the watchman.”

One of us was naïve enough to ask him, “Why the watchman?” I’m convinced it wasn’t me.

In an instant, Gopalji responded with a hiccup, “Who else do you think she’ll be cheating on you with? The watchman, it’s obvious.”

After yet another couple of rounds, Gopalji offered us his most precious gem of the night.

“Dekho yaar,” he said with the air of one who knows much more than his audience. “Everyone knows that the only, and only, route to good sex passes through the brown glow of a Jack Daniel’s before it ever reaches a woman”.

Then, in the style of a great Maharaja at the end of a beautiful literary piece, he pulled out his wallet with a flourish and pushed a fifty into the palm of the waiter nearest to him.

His gesture may or may not have explained why every waiter all the way till the exit saluted us on our way out. It may or may not have explained why, in a drunken gambling session that night, Gopalji kept borrowing money from Munnu. But it certainly explained why, the next morning, Gopalji’s wallet was lighter not by a fifty, but by a thousand and fifty.

I mentioned gambling, which is what we did most of the time owing to the absence of absolutely anything else to do in Daman. I also mentioned alcohol, which is what Gopalji did most of the time he gambled. That, and the sudden and untimely loss of a thousand on the first night, ensured that Gopalji fell into the most obvious of gambling pitfalls - trying to recover one’s losses. The net result, at the end of six days, was another thousand sized hole in his wallet and an even larger one in his ego.

Indeed, Gopalji had only two real states on that trip. One was drunk, and when he was in this state he did much of what forms the meat of this story. The other was the state commonly known as ‘just sobering up’. In this state he did just one thing, he complained. His complaint was such, “Arey fuck yaar, you bastards forced me to drink again! Now I have a splitting headache. You guys are too much yaar. Ahh, I need a brandy to clear my head”.

Understandably, this state quickly gave way to the first one.

I doubt, however, that even Gopalji would try to explain away everything that happened in Daman that year in the name of alcohol. For instance, the incident outside ‘Dara da dhaba’ with the taxi driver.

The taxi driver I speak of is the same guy who had ferried us from the station to the hostel. Yes, the same guy, even after our little ride got him pushed out of a moving car. So miserable was the state of Daman’s taxi industry that the guy jumped up in joy when we asked him to be our chauffeur for the remainder of the trip.

Anyway, one evening outside Dara’s Dhaba, Gopalji stumbled out of the car, still reeling from his tea time quarter of Signature (the financial losses had caused Jack Daniels and Co. to give way to far more mass market brands). He let the rest of us enter the Dhaba as he waited by the car. Then stepping up to the driver’s window, he gave the driver a wry little smile.

The driver responded with a nervous smile of his own. The look on his face said, quite simply, “The last time you had that look on your face, I remember falling out of a moving car. What will it be this time?”

Gopalji then snuck out a tiny bottle from his jacket and waved it at the driver. It was the quarter of Signature, with a sip or so still in it, clinging to the bottom.

“Here, this is for you, take it” he said generously.

“No thank you Sahab, I don’t drink, thank you.”

“Arey come on yaar, what are you talking about. Here, don’t be shy now, its all yours.”

“No no sir, I really don’t drink, thank you very much,” he said as firmly as a terrified taxi driver in Daman could.

Gopalji would have nothing of it though. He took the bottle and thrust it into the cabbie’s shirt pocket. Gopalji had the same demeanour one has while bribing a government official, while the official acts as though he’s doing one a favour by accepting it.

The driver, who figured that it was just easier to accept the damn bottle, stayed quiet, looking foolish with a tiny bottle sticking out of his shirt.

After a terribly large meal at Dara's, Gopalji cornered the driver again.

“So… now that I have made sure you have a good party tonight," he said pointing to the bottle, "why don’t you do me a little favour?”

The driver stared at the two sips in the bottle and wondered what kind of party it would have helped him have, even if he did drink.

Gopalji didn’t wait for the driver to respond as he continued, “Nothing much really, I am sure you get requests like this every day. No big deal at all.”

The driver stayed quiet, presumably out of fear.

“Basically, my simple request is – Why don’t you arrange a girl for me tonight?” said Gopalji.  

A girl, he said. A girl. The rest of us were just a little way down from the cab when one of us overheard Gopalji asking the cabbie for a girl.

“Gopalji’s asking the cabbie for a girl”, said the eavesdropper.

“A girl? Like a girlfriend?” asked another.

Tch tch, such little kids we were.

“No, you moron! A girl, like a girl for the night.”

Aghast, some of us ran back to Gopalji.

The driver was holding the quarter out to Gopalji, obviously quite distraught, “No please sir, I don’t know any girls, please, just take your quarter back and let me drive home to my wife and kids. Please.” Looking back, I remember the driver’s helpless expression as he said this and it’s safe to say that he sorely regretted having ever met us at all.

“No no, let it be. It’s okay, you take the bottle. It’s fine if you can’t get me any girls”, said Gopalji, very obviously hurt by the driver’s thankless behaviour. 

Having heard this conversation on getting there, for a few moments our shock momentarily transformed itself into nearly parental anger. We weren’t sure, however, what we should be more pissed off about, Gopalji seeking out hookers or him trying to get our driver drunk while he was at it.

A girl, Gopalji had said, likely just for the night too. Gopalji’s new life or whatever that was, obviously had more to it than we thought.

Also as inexplicable, was Gopalji’s little cameo at the Ghazal (plus dinner) function we crashed the next night. Only kind of drunk, Gopalji walked up to the organiser of the Ghazal event and mumbled something in his ear. The organiser nodded and smiled the false smile of an organiser, while pointing towards a table with both arms. I’m not sure what Gopalji told the guy and am even hazier on what the guy’s response was. Next thing we knew, however, was that Gopala had jumped up on stage and grabbed the mike. For the next five minutes, Gopalji treated that sombre gathering of drunk Ghazal lovers to ‘Jaana O Jaana’. Sure, the mindless automatons at Indian Idol may not have been able to appreciate the delectable rhythm of Gopalji’s first song, but the fat ghazal singer, put on hold thanks to Gopalji, clapped along till every lard of fat on him could feel Gopalji’s pleasant vibrations. As for us, we initially froze in horror seeing Gopalji on stage. Soon, however, we realized the audience was high enough to have hummed along to anything from Michael Jackson to a cat wailing. And Gopalji was a lot better than either, who cared what Indian Idol said. 

After the success of his performance, Gopalji drank with animated abandon that night. At some point, he came up to me and started to whisper, in a voice suddenly sober.

“Arey Sushant, you know why I do all this? Do you?”

I didn’t, and he proceeded to tell me.

“Sushant, soon after I’m out of college, pitaji will have me married and I’ll have to take care of the gaddi as well. These are the only years I have to have a good time. U.P. is not Mumbai you know, it's not even Delhi. Life will be very different post marriage.”

He slunk away before I could answer, and proceeded to be drunk again. 

There are many other little stories I could tell you from that trip, but the gist of each is in the same general direction. We were stumbling into adulthood, in a way progressively more cockeyed with every step. On this trip, one of us went looking for a girl, on sale. On subsequent trips, only more could happen. Little did we know then that these could be, in fact, the best years of our lives. 

Many more trips happened after this one, and they continue to this day. Those are of course, different stories. 

Tripping: Chapter 2

This is part 2 of a series, you can find Chapter 1 and 3 on the timeline

In the cab, I sat near the window at the back, diagonally across from the driver. Three others got in the back seat with me - Satpal, Sarthak and Anvesh on top of both of them. Munnu and Gopalji sat in the front with the driver. Gopalji hasn’t had an introduction yet. Well, Gopalji was Munnu’s cousin who we all knew from Kota. He’d shown up for the trip at a virtually no notice and with the whisper of an invite, in stark contrast to the minefield of difficulties that we had to skip around for all the others to be there. More importantly, he was a top notch entertainer, intentionally or otherwise. Bespectacled, sickly thin and with a hairstyle that he fondly referred to as, “Arey, Salman Khan in Tere Naam yaar”, he had us constantly worried. Worried that all that hair would cause his slender frame to topple over from being too top heavy. His habit of breaking into a frivolous swaying routine as he sang Jaana O Jaana, a song he had composed for Indian Idol 2, didn't do much to allay our fears either. Interestingly enough, the 'ji' in his name is not a suffix I’m attaching for respect, it’s just part of his name. Yes, back home in Farrukhabad, people of all ages called him Gopalji, including his parents.

Anyway, the cab being older than the invention of the gearbox, had one of those sticks in the side of the steering wheel for changing speeds. Gopalji sat snuggled in between Munnu and the driver, in the place where a regular car would have had a gear. With Munnu still weighing in the triple digits at the time and the driver being a regular roly – poly Patel, Gopalji’s svelte figure was a huge plus.

As the cab rattled along the highway, we began to see Daman for what it really was. Industrial sheds littered the landscape. The kind that looked like they were unprofitable despite being illegal. All around the factories was a grassy swamp interspersed by industrial wasteland. The water body in the distance was the Arabian Sea, if the driver was to be believed. It’s resemblance to a dumping creek was uncanny, however. At the edge of the water was a frothy, mud coloured strip of land. The driver told us that the locals called it ‘the beach’.

For my part, I tried my best to act like Daman was, in fact, the paradise that I had expected it to be.

“Guys look, a puddle with grass”, I pointed out excitedly at some point.

“Woah! Did you see that palm tree?” at another.

From the front, Gopalji asked the question I knew he’d been itching to ask since we’d left Mumbai.

“Yaar Sushant, how come there are no girls on your trip?” he said.

“Girls? Seriously Gopalji, girls? Why would there be girls? This is an annual guys only trip, hasn’t anyone told you?” was my response.

He wasn’t satisfied, “Par yaar Sushant, what kind of trip happens without some nice girls?”

Suddenly Sarthak cut in with, “Gopalaa, it’s becoming quite clear to me why you showed up all the way from Kanpur at half a day’s notice. Girls eh? Who do you think we are, pimps of some sort?” 

For some reason, that got everyone howling with laughter for the next couple of minutes.

While Gopalji may not have known it, my argument around this being a guys only trip wasn’t as obvious as I made it out to be. Before our first trip, we had contemplated having a trip which also had girls on it. Having spent some critical formative years in Kota, however, between us we knew a grand total of three women and one other by association. Moreover, our confidence in them accompanying us on a trip, just like with almost anything else to do women, was unmentionably low. So in a moment of manly pride stemming from not wanting to face certain rejection, we decided to not invite any of the girls we knew. I remember how it had happened.

“So are we calling any girls?” Anvesh had asked cautiously.

“Girls….hmmm..”, was Satpal’s only reaction.

There was a long pause before Munnu spoke up.

“Abey girls will spoil the fun, it won’t be the same with them around,” he said, rescuing us all.

I blurted out my relief, knowing fully well that if we did call them, it would have been Satpal and I who would have actually done the asking, and by that would also have been the ones who would have faced the rejection personally.

“Yeah yeah, good point. Very true, very true, male bonding and all.” I had said.

“Exactly, I’ve been wanting for this to be a guys – only thing all along”, was Satpal’s excuse for a cover – up.

And that was that.

Getting back to where we were in the cab, conversation was happening all around.  Gopalji and Sarthak were talking about all that had transpired with him since we’d last met. If I remember correctly, it was some very interesting stuff too, but more on that later. Satpal and Anvesh were chatting up the driver and trying to figure what we could see and do over the next few days. I oscillated between the two conversations while holding on to the door, just in case it burst open from all the pressure against it. Munnu, however, was uncharacteristically quiet. His only contribution to the banter was a mild grunt every few minutes. Also, I think things on the front seat had gotten rather cramped because every now and then Gopalji would pause in the middle of his story, look at Munnu and complain, “Munnu yaar, give me some space, I’m practically in the driver’s lap.” But Munnu would do no such thing. Instead, he would nod lethargically and let out yet another low grunt.

With time, it became impossible to ignore that Munnu’s share of the front seat was beginning to get disproportionately large. Based on what Gopalji reported from the front seat, Munnu was apparently gradually spreading his legs wider and wider apart. This was causing the feather-weight Gopalji to be pushed up against the driver. All the while, Munnu’s grunts continued, slowly but surely getting louder and each lasting longer than the one before it.

“Munnu, what’s going on?” asked Satpal from the back seat when his grunts became loud enough to disrupt conversation.

Munnu didn’t reply, but grunted some more.

“Err... Munnu?” continued Satpal.

Seemingly oblivious to the question, Munnu spread his legs a bit wider, pushing Gopalji virtually onto the driver.

“Munnu, what the.....what’s going on? Seriously...” I yelled out from the back.

Munnu finally decided to speak up, “Uhh, nothing nothing, hota hai sometimes..ughhh....when I go out of town …...ughhh....”

“Huh? But what exactly is happening?” we quizzed him.

“Nothing nothing...open the windows...” he mumbled.

By this time, Munnu had spread out some more and now Gopalji was very much where the driver should have been. The driver, of course, was virtually flattened against the door. He looked something like a wind sock, the edges of his limbs hooked onto the steering wheel and the pedals, but the rest of him stretched out in the direction of the door.

Munnu arbitrarily started speaking again, “It’s nothing.....just …..a ...uggghhh.... a physiological reaction …..nothing...just open the windows yaar”

That cracked us up properly. For the next couple of minutes, the four of us in the backseat couldn’t stop laughing. I held on tightly to the door near me to stop myself from falling out from all that laughing. That’s how funny it was.

“Munnu...”, said Sarthak, between chuckles, “Munnu! Hahahaha, ‘a physiological reaction’, hahaha”. He paused to laugh some more, then continued, “man.....I never ever thought I would hear you say big words like that man. This is hilarious, where’d you pick that up?”

I knew of course, and answered, also between laughs, “The bastard’s been studying for the GRE, that’s where he’s picking up all this fancy talk. Man, I miss the old doodhwala Kanpur fellow we used to hang with earlier.”

Of course, Gopalji, who was facing the full force of Munnu’s physiogical reaction, wasn’t the least bit amused. Now that Munnu had spread out even further, Gopalji faced the very real danger of having his rib cage cave in. He moved the only part of his body that he still could, his neck, twisting it backwards and nearly spitting in rage yelled out at us, “You fuckers..... you think this is funny?”

Our chuckles only enraged him further. Munnu continued to grunt.

Later that day, we got to know more about Munnu’s issue and on all subsequent trips we made every attempt to account for it. Munnu’s problem, which was yet to receive a name, was quite peculiar and more than just just a little embarrassing. To put it in as delicate a way as possible, one would say that a change in the weather caused a disproportionate change in Munnu’s temperature profile. To put it perhaps a tad less gently, one would say that that a change of scene made Munnu somewhat testy. Abandoning any attempt at subtlety, one would simply say that venturing out of town hit Munnu below the belt, hard. But if you still haven’t got it, then for your benefit - Munnu’s problem was that his balls heated up dangerously every time he left the city.

Like I said, we only got to know this later that day. In the cab, we hadn’t realised that the reason Munnu was spreading his legs outwards was to allow the heat from between his legs to dissipate somewhat. It also hadn’t struck us till that point why Munnu insisted on keeping the windows open despite the rain. The only thing we did notice was Munnu needing progressively larger amounts of space on the front seat. Poor Munnu, he was just trying to save the lives of all the little kids who he someday intended to create.

Sitting in the back of the cab, I knew that with so much pressure building up in the front seat, something had to give. I remember thinking that perhaps the door would burst open, the car was a relic. If not, then Gopalji’s rib cage was likely to break. But instead, what really happened was once again the doing of Munnu. Having wrestled with the heat for all this while, Munnu had reached tipping point. While earlier it had been a matter of safeguarding his future children, it was now a matter of saving his pants from catching fire. The concern now being far more immediate, drastic action was warranted. At least Munnu thought so. So, in a moment we all remember with the vividness of a Van Gogh, Munnu let loose. With a loud grunt and a powerful snap, he spread out his legs to their fullest extent. The situation in the front seat had been volatile even before, and the snap was all that was needed to set it off like a firecracker.

Directly in the line of impact was Gopalji. When Munnu’s leg hit Gopalji with that incredible power, the laws of Physics demanded that Gopalji accelerate in the direction of travel of the leg. However, that direction was blockaded by the roly poly driver. Hence there was only so far Gopalji could travel in that direction. When he collided with the driver but still had plenty momentum left in him, the laws of Physics had no choice but to instruct him to travel upwards, instead of outwards.  So to summarise, Gopalji flew outwards in a blur, then hit the driver and bounced gently upwards. The driver, meanwhile, had been hit by the high speed flying object that was Gopalji. He flew outwards towards the door.

Then the driver slammed against the door and was stopped dead by it . The car lost control for a bit before the driver found his bearing again and took a hold of it, bringing it back on track. He then yelled at Munnu in Gujarati and asked him to behave himself. Yeah, that's what happened.

Actually, that's not what happened. That's what I wish had happened. But it didn't. 

In reality, the driver did slam against the door. Unfortuantely, the door did not stop him dead in his tracks. The door, after centuries of good service to the car and it’s occupants, burst at the hinges and fell away onto the road. The driver, who was still in motion, had no choice but to follow. Gopalji, who had been lifted upwards briefly, chose this exact moment to fall back down and land in the spot where the driver had been a moment earlier, at the wheel. He grabbed the wheel with both hands and looked back at us. His trademark ‘punchline expression’ was pasted on his face. Eyes wide, mouth visibly holding back laughter, as he got ready to deliver the gem that he was sure would get everyone rolling on the floor, at which point he would have to hold back no more and could join the others in the hilarity.

“Arre yaar,” he said, pausing for effect, “I have a driving license, but can’t drive for nuts.”

Then he continued, “Yaar Munnu, can you touch my chest and check please, I think I may have cracked a rib or something.”

With that, Gopalji burst out laughing and began, much to our horror, driving.

While I’ve described the events after Munnu’s snap in detail, it’s important to note that they happened in little more than a flash. In so short a time, in fact, that the four of us on the back seat could just about gape in amazement at what was happening up ahead. We stared, with our jaws hanging out, speechless, as Gopalji cackled away at the wheel of the car. 

As the car rattled along and Gopalji’s laughter subsided, there was no sound in the car except the one coming from Munnu. Having spread his legs out, he now sounded like a pressure cooker gently blowing off some steam. With his head turned up high and with a satisfied expression on his face, he was busy letting out an unending:

“Aaahhhhhhhh....”

To be continued.....

Tripping: Chapter 1

This is Chapter 1 of a series, you can find chapters 2 and 3 on the timeline

The plan was simple, and cliched. The gang would meet every year and head for a trip. The gang, of course, was the bunch of stunted personalities who feature in most of my stories. I would have referred to us by our collective name except we had none. And it’s not as though we hadn’t tried either, we had. It’s just that even we had to admit that something like “The Musketeers” or “The Marauaders” would be pushing it, since there was so little we did in the way of musketeering and even lesser in the way of marauding. Having said that, our self respect would still not allow us to be called the “The Kota Hang - Outers Group 2004-2006”. So we remained nameless, torn forever between pride and practicality. But yes, that was the plan in a nutshell, that despite us having been strewn into different engineering colleges across the country, we would congregate at the end of every academic year and head for a trip together to any of India’s numerous worthy holiday destinations.

The plan had its roots in the success of our first escapade. Right after the end of our engineering entrance exams, Munnu, Satpal, Anvesh and I landed ourselves in Goa. It was our first trip together to Goa, actually our first together to anywhere but Kota. Over the next seven days, in that quintessential boys to men trip, we got introduced to most of what would be the fundamental focus of our lives over the next few years. Booze, gambling, women (or the desire for women, if you want to be excruciatingly accurate), we saw it all. But most importantly, for the awkward nineteen year olds that we were, we got our first taste of real freedom. That legendary trip ensured that we would to try to replicate it over the next many years, and so the plan took birth.

By the second year, however, I as the de - facto planner for these trips began to realise how painful it could be to get a few jobless sophomores in one place at the same time. The obstacles were endless and the variables infinite. Satpal, for instance, had a curious kind of problem. No matter what time of the year we planned out the trip, he always claimed it was very likely that his sister would be in Kanpur just then, and hence there was no way he could commit to a trip earlier than a couple of days before it actually happened. This may even have been fine, if it wasn’t for the fact his stinginess was the stuff of legend. (I’m not exaggerating, for instance, we all know that on all 'boys to men' trips, everyone hires bikes, or at least cars. We on the other hand, thanks to Satpal’s perpetual cost cutting, had to go everywhere in Goa State Transport buses. As you can imagine, our pissoff was unimaginable.) So whenever it was just a couple of days to the proposed trip and we hadn’t made any bookings thanks to Satpal’s sister issues, he would realise that the ticket and hotel prices had gotten ‘way too high’ and we wouldn't end up going at all.

Sarthak had other issues. While he was fundamentally eager to go on the trip, he was forever dragged down by his tendencies. His tendency to say 'no' was prime among these. Yes, Sarthak had a problem uncommon to most men, which was that his default response to virtually everything was ‘no’. Once he’d said 'no', of course, it would take forever to convince him that he wanted to do exactly what he was so profusely arguing against.

Munnu’s situation was graver. Somehow his university had decided to schedule its semesters and examinations entirely at odds with all other university calendars in the country, making it difficult to schedule anything at a convenient time for him. In fact, in the third version of the trip, Munnu actually came along with us in the few days of study leave between two exams.

Finally, Anvesh also tended to provide some resistance. Being a hardcore Gujju, he’d seen practically the whole world as part of large Patel Travels group tours and his perpetual complaint was that he’d already been to whatever place we were considering.

In short, everyone seemed to have some ridiculous problem with either time or place. Now I’m not telling you all this to justify why I chose Daman as the location for our second trip. I’m not, seriously, you have to believe me. I’m not even denying that I may have briefly thought that Daman was a virgin beach paradise, superior to Goa in natural beauty and inferior to it in night life, but only just. I’m not denying that I thought that. Come on, haven’t I admitted that a dozen times already? I may also have had no clue that Daman was just a haven for poor souls from Gujarat, who couldn’t drink publicly in their own state, to get sloshed. I may have not known that. Yes, despite all my detailed online research, I may still not have known that Daman was just an overly large and incredibly cheap bar. It is possible that I didn't know that. Although it’s been so long now that I barely remember. Look look, I’m just saying that when you’ve had so much trouble finding the right place and time, and an opportunity opens up which could work for everyone, you’ve got to grab it straight up. That’s all I’m saying, you’re with me on this one right?

So, we decided to go to Daman. For six days. The first group of people in all history to spend six entire days in Daman. But we didn’t know that.

We reached Vapi station early in the morning. The train ride was a long discourse about how Indian Railways had done great work in the Mumbai - Ahmedabad belt and how our journey would have taken so much longer just a few years earlier. All this courtesy Sarthak, who was a certified member of the little known and easily forgotten Indian Railways Fan Club. Satpal was the only one really enthused by any of this, and he cut in every now and then with a “Haan yaar, the tickets were also damn cheap”.

Outside the railway station, Munnu and Satpal took charge of how we would get to the hotel. Yes, Munnu, who made it a point to bargain everywhere, but especially at places with fixed prices, like prepaid taxi counters. And yes, Satpal who, as I mentioned earlier, let slip no opportunity to protect his family's vast, almost royal wealth. With the two of them leading the effort to achieve transportation, we should have expected what happened next. 

Thirty minutes later, a dilapidated white ambassador appeared from somewhere. The kind of model that you'd only have seen in 40's movies. If it wasn't covered in mud and if it hadn't been falling apart at the ends, I'm sure some poor fool would have called it 'vintage'. With a total capacity of five, Satpal and Munnu had estimated that it would suffice for the six of us, plus the driver of course. Despite all this, I was relieved to see the cab. Don’t get me wrong, I knew it was definitely going to be cramped. There was also a good chance we’d end up dead in one of those ‘Overloaded car loses control on NH - 7. Five dead, one critical, one missing’ type of stories. But all in all it beat the hell out of having to travel in a state transport bus. For one, it didn’t involve having to avoid pan spittle from the conductor’s mouth. It didn't involve having to listen to loud, live folk music that you would be compelled to pay for later. It didn't even involve having to push back the gag reflex aroused by a distinct scent of urine from somewhere under your seat. But most importantly, it sure as hell didn’t involve trying to keep enthusiastic eunuchs on the next seat from grabbing your privates. 

And so we set off ..

To be continued...