Prayers and Hope.

Karan had been sitting at the window in his dark room for over an hour, his eyes steadfast on the window across the street. The moon had come out over half an hour ago but she was nowhere to be seen. He had been watching every terrace that he could see from his Rajouri Garden apartment in East Delhi where women were doing their karwachaut Puja when the moon came out. But strangely her house was dark.

For eight years now that he had known her not once had she failed to keep the ritual. And for seven of those years he had also kept the fast with her, without her knowing. They’d been friends then good friends and then great friends. But always ‘just friends’. For eight long years.

When he first met her she was sitting on stairs of the fire exit in the office. He used to slip down the seldom used stairs to have a smoke rather than go all the way down to the smoking area. For some reason they sat there in the stairs that day and talked for ten continuous hours. They were both new in office and it was their first jobs. He remembered that the ten hours were spent mostly listening to her. She talked mostly about her college and that meant Rahul. A name that he then didn’t know he would hear a lot from her for the rest of his life. She was deeply in love with Rahul for four years in college but never had the courage to tell him directly. She just assumed that he would somehow realize it himself. But years passed in the wink of an eye without any confessions being made. And now he was halfway across the globe doing his masters. It was at one of those weak moments that overwhelmed her once in a while and she’d hide away at the seldom used fire escape that Karan chanced upon her. Her eyes red and with mascara drooping down her cheeks, she was a sight he’d never forget in his life. She looked like an angel just banished out of heaven.

They grew close within a short period. He didn’t have other friends in office and neither did she. They ended up being together all the time. He even moved into a house in her locality. They were together right from his morning wake up call to her goodnight call.

Soon enough he realized that he was falling for her although she was still just as obsessed about Rahul as the day they had met. Slowly it dawned on him that she would never think of him the way he thought of her but still he remained always by her side. Hope is often what sinks a man faster down into quicksand.

Seven years ago on a similar karwachaut day he was surprised to learn that she was keeping the vruth (religious fast) for Rahul. That meant not having anything to eat till the moon appeared in the evening sky. And Rahul wasn’t even her boyfriend in technical terms let alone her husband. He didn’t even know that there was a girl a thousand mile away staying hungry for the whole day apparently for his well being. That kind of made him realize two things. That her love for Rahul was deeper than he imagined and secondly that whatever he did she will never be his. That night when she called him up to say goodnight he asked her to confess her love to Rahul. She was dead against it as she believed that every girl deserved to be proposed to. But he knew that it was just another way to say that she was too proud to do that.

For several days afterwards their conversations would somehow turn to this topic and would end in the same way with her refusing to do anything like that. But slowly and slowly he managed to chip away at her wall of ego and pride. When Rahul came to India the next time after almost two years she met him and confessed her love.

Things moved really fast and the next karwachaut he watched from his window as with the rising moon she took the first morsel of her from Rahul’s hands. This time she was his wife.

Unknown to her, from the first time he had realized that he was in love with her, he had been keeping the karwachaut fast with every year. He wasn’t a religious person at all. But this somehow was different. He didn’t know nor did he care for the prayers but every year he would have his first meal after ensuring that she had had hers.

It was now almost two hours since the moon had come out and he knew that she wouldn’t have had anything. There was no light in her house across the street but he knew she was inside. The faint glow of an oil lamp in what he knew was the Puja room confirmed what he already knew.

At about 11 in the night he saw Rahul ring the bell of his house. He saw the light come in the Puja room and for a brief instance he saw her run towards the stairs and then the lights in the stairs came on and then the drawing room in the ground floor. And the door opened and there stood what to him was an angel come down to earth. But then her face clouded over all of a sudden. And he realized why when he looked at Rahul. He was almost too drunk to stand up by himself. He was propped up against the door frame and he staggered into the house. A little while later the light in the top floor room directly opposite his window came on. He could see from between the drapes that an argument was going on and she was almost in tears. Then all of a sudden Rahul raised his hands and hit her hard sending her sprawling across the floor.

The blood started to boil in him. He wanted to run across the street and pull her up. But he knew he couldn’t do anything. She was another man’s wife now. He thought if he was right in convincing her all those years ago to go confess to Rahul about her love. He thought if he would also have treated her had he been married to her. Perhaps. But something within him told him that it would never be so. She was just too precious for him and will always remain so.

He sat there inside the dark room thinking about all their times together; as friends. Him a little bit more than her. Then the door to her terrace opened up and she came out alone. She had a plate with a lamp on it and a mug of water. She did her prayers looking at the moon and then took tore a morsel of chapatti from the plate and brought it towards her mouth. But she stopped midway. Her eyes were a torrent. She looked across the street to the window where he was. Something told him that she knew that he was there although there was no light in the room and she couldn’t possibly see him. He just kept looking at her and prayed, perhaps the first time in his life, pleading to god to heed her karwachaut prayers and to keep her happy always.

PS: Today is karwachaut. And for all those who believe may your prayers be answered.

Phoket mein Phuket!!!

“Yes Dad, I should be there in time for dinner. I know George Uncle is also coming but they should be in another flight.”

“I don’t know what time I will get there exact. Bbye, I’ll let you know”.

And just as soon as I had put my phone down I realized that the ground below was awfully close and that we must be close to landing. But looking out the window it didn’t look out like any of the airports of Kerala that I was familiar with. A certain alternated conscience in the back of my mind said perhaps it must be the old airport in Kochi. Hmm..

I looked out again through the window and I could feel that the plane was moving really slow, even for the fact that it was about to land. It was almost hovering. Then the runway came to view. It seemed like a really small unused one and the ocean was just to the sides. The evening sun had an orange glow spread everywhere.

Then as the plane came down lower again and the runway became all too clear, panic stuck me. This was no runway. Again the alternate conscience spoke, it must be a taxiway and the pilot must have made a mistake. But can he really land the plane here it seems too narrow. And there were planes parked to the sides. Parallel parked like by the side of M.G. Road. And up ahead was horror. Another Indian Airlines plane had its nose stuck out into the the runway (or taxiway) and I was sure we’d crash into it. For a moment the pilot tries to pull up but seems late. But by that time we had moved past that Indian Airlines plane and now it seems that he has barely enough space to land and he does that amazingly. Almost like a helicopter. And as I look out the window I could see two ‘big’ airhostesses of an Airline (the voice in the back says Air Jordan) chatting away merrily and unaware that a plane had landed on the taxiway. But they did seem pissed off at all the noise around.

Meanwhile inside the plane there was panic everywhere. People are rushing out and aren’t even waiting for the ladder to be put against the plane. I too decide to join the crowd and started pulling at my luggage above. But again panic spreads inside my head as I realize that I don’t have a shirt on. This will have to do. I pull my blazer over me without a shirt and start walking to the exit.

When I boarded this plane I knew this ticket I had with me was for Port Blair. I assumed that it was meant to make a stop somewhere in Kerala before that and my plan was to get out there and make my way home to Trivandrum. But looking out the window this didn’t look like either Trivandrum or Kochi. It seems I wouldn’t be able to be home in time for Dinner.

The blond haired man (the voice in the heard said he’s an American) who was sitting next to me was just ahead of me at the exit. I gathered up the most severe of my American accent and asked him “Excuse me sir, where is this place exaclly?”

He turned around and said “Kuch kaha be tune?”

Feeling extremely embarrassed I said again in a more Indian accent, “I was just asking you sir where exactly this place is?”.

“Phuket, Thailand”, said the ‘American’.

By this time I was out of the plane. The scene there was really out of this world. Planes were parked on either side of the taxiway and there was a bustling crowd everywhere. I didn’t know what to do.

I turned around to the plane that had brought me there. It was all empty and two airhostesses were chatting away at the stairs. I approached one and meekly said to her “My ticket is for Port Blair”.

The lady was plump and looked like one of the ladies that you see in cnn or bbc that they show of places like Lebanon or Iran. She really should have had a scarf around her face.

The lady smiles and says, “Don’t worry I’ll take care of it”.

But as the sinking sun had disappeared completely making the flashy neon lights outside the airport all the more attractive there was a debate going on between the two voices in my head.

The one in the front said, “Hmm..got to call up mom to ask her to put my dinner back in the fridge I’ll have it tomorrow. I should be able to find another plane from Port Blair to Trivandrum first thing tomorrow”.

The one in the back said, “Dude you’ve got the weekend off. Have fun here in Phuket and we’ll find a way of getting to Kerala later”

No don’t wake up now no noooooooo..The beaches, the babes…ahh crap, I should have closed the curtains.

PS: Afternoon naps do bring the most wonderful dreams. The only problem is they always seem to end just when it starts to get exciting. I thought I’d write down this one before I forget it and publish it before i change my mind.

Of Wines, Whiskey, Weed and Cleo

Anish was a proud Syrian Catholic of the Pala Diocese. On one occasion when he was getting eloquent about the proud history of the Syrian Christians of Kerala over a bottle of Fine OCR Rum and the choicest herbs rolled in Rizla he was getting a bit unbearable.

Nitin all of a sudden burst out saying “Dude, you can’t be as much as a pure bred as you claim to be. You know that your surname traces its origin to Egypt? For all you know you might have got to the Mallu shores hanging on to a drift wood in the Arabian Sea. Or perhaps your ‘great to the power 20^th’ grandfather used to clean the deck on the ships that got spices to Egypt and he jumped out when the ship was parked for petrol in Kochi or Kodungalloor”

And Rajesh too quipped in saying, “Hey I’ve seen your grandmom and her nose does resemble Queen Cleo’s.

Anish (still not having regained from the shock of Nitin’s outburst): Cleo??

Nitin: Cleopatra you fool.

Anish: Dude that’s not possible. My ancestors were here in Kerala during the time of Jesus, and Cleopatra was probably in Dubai or wherever in Egypt at that time

Vipin (drunk as hell): Dude Cleo was in Rome. She was going out with Julius Caesar.

Nitin: I thought she was dating Augustus Caesar?

Vipin: Well you see they both lived in the same house, and once Augustus was working out in the gym Cleo saw him and fell flat.

Rajesh: And she used to terrorize us with her homemade Chakka Ada* whenever we went to her place.

Vipin: Who Cleopatra? Hic.

Anish: Please how is it possible that my ancestors be in Egypt at the time of Cleo. He would have been here in Kerala to get baptized at the hands of St. Thomas.

Nitin: Now don’t even get me started on that whole story. Man, even if the guy was here in Kerala I don’t think any ancestor of yours would have let himself come in contact with water to be baptized, at any cost. Just tell me when was the last time that you took a bath?

Rajesh: Maybe St. Thomas offered him a kilo of the finest ‘grass’ from the shores of lake Jordan

The whole group burst out laughing. And when the laughter and the smoke settled all of them looked at Anish. His face grim. Just as it was starting to feel as if the limits have been crossed he smiled and said, “Probably also a bottle of the wine left over from Cana”, and started out laughing himself.

Having had their fill of A, cut and diced the attention turned to Vipin. Vipin believed in balanced living. He balanced the barrel-fulls of beer that he consumed with hours spent in the gym the next day. Still he had a hard time balancing his tummy when he walked.

Nitin started: Dude hows that one pack ab of yours?

Vipin (struggling to keep his eyes open): Coming out good man. Round and fine

Nitin: Ahh I knew it. You were always an all rounder

Vipin: hehe. Hey you won’t believe it, I saw a sardar in the gym today

Nitin: So what’s the big deal. They have so much of butter chicken and booze, they got to burn it off

Vipin: No dude this guy was fit. He had six pack abs and everything

Nitin: A sardar with abs? Dude that’s ‘ab-surd’

Everyone started laughing again and Rajesh sprayed the beer in his mouth practically all around the room.

Another joint started doing the rounds.

Rajesh started getting up saying that he’s gotta drop a friend to the railway station.

Nitin: Dude which one? The girl friend? The partimer? The neighbor next door?

Rajesh: Oh shut up. She’s not my girlfriend

Vipin: Oh poor boy, don’t you worry I’ll advise you on some of my best tricks to make a girl accept your

friend request in Orkut. Start talking about your sick mother in home and the unmarried sisters…

Anish (cutting in): Ahh shut the F up V. Maavinte mandel irikkunnavanu aarelum mango juice kodukkumo (roughly translated: Do you offer mango juice to anyone who’s sitting on a mango tree?)

Vipin (obviously not pleased at being cut short): Why not what if he feels like having vodka mixed with mango juice when he’s on the mango tree?

Nitin cut in: Hey you two, FIDO.

Vipin: What???

Nitin: It’s short for F it and Drive On. Dude, Raj let’s just finish off this joint and take off.

Anish who had drifted off to sleep for just a few seconds suddenly opened his eyes and said, “Hey have you noticed that the best things in the world all start with the letter W. You know Weed, Whiskey, Wine…”

“And Women”, said Vipin.

Anish said: Women really are strange creatures, man. Yesterday a woman on the road called me a pervert. I didn’t know what that meant so I replied “It’s O.K”.

Nitin: Haha no surprises there, your face does fit the profile of a serial rapist

Anish: F off. It wasn’t that. This girl was walking towards me and just as she was a few feet away her dupatta just fell off. I swear I wasn’t looking anywhere.

And everyone just started laughing again. “We trust you Anish we trust you”.

Nitin and Rajesh got up and stumbled towards to the car.

*Chakka Ada – Something like a cake made out of jack fruit.

The Powers that be.

It was the silence at his official residence that seemed unnerving to Dr. Tiwari. More unnerving than what had transcribed in the just concluded discussions with Prime Minister and the Defense Minister. The silence let him think about the implications of the decisions taken. While all this time he was focused on our enemies at our right and left which made him oblivious to the designs of a foe pretending to be a friend. He had tried hard to convince the Prime Minister that the actions that he planned to undertake would eventually make India another client state of the American Empire. The worst fears of the nation’s founding fathers would soon turn true. The silence seemed to point a finger at him for his oversight.

Since the time he took over as the National Security Adviser of the nation Dr. Shashank Tiwari has been preoccupied with the menace of Internal Security with its links to the adversary across the western border. The United States had spread its tentacles from Eastern Europe to the Middle East to Pakistan and now stood at the doorsteps of this mighty nation which had withstood the overtures to be part of the empire for several decades. And now it seems that it has no option but to surrender its forts. The Prime Minister would be talking to President Obama first thing in the morning giving his consent to use our forward bases to be used by American fighter jets. And by tomorrow the ball would have started to roll which would convert a regional skirmish into a full-fledged world war. What else would it be if the two most powerful nations in the world would battle each other? More than half the world’s population would be affected. The Americans had promised that they would use their bases in Taiwan, South Korea, Guam and the Philippines against China if India let them to the use our bases. It was part of their strategy to surround the enemy and attack from multiple directions. The Prime Minister seemed to believe that we have no other option left with the North East of the country left defenseless as our forces were busy fighting the war in the western frontier. But opening the door to the Americans would make India another Kuwait. It was somewhat like the lines of an Eagles song that he ones heard somewhere - The Americans can come in anytime but they would never leave.

Dr. Tiwari had for long anticipated a war with the Chinese. They wanted a reorganization of the world order. The current status didn’t give due credence to the Chinese beliefs of their standing. The geo political hierarchy still had nations like the UK, France, Germany and Italy punching much above their weights while the Chinese were still being considered outsiders. The war would change all that just as WWII had. What he hadn’t realized was that the Americans also had inklings of the Chinese plan. Perhaps much clearer than he had at that time. And what they did was make the Chinese fight the battle at a time and place of America’s choice. The Americans would now use the war to put the Chinese back to where they belong. The sole credible challenger to western supremacy had to be taught a lesson for dreaming too big. The plan for this must have been set in place at least a decade ago. And all this time he had thought the Iraq war was about the oil and Af-Pak was about terrorism. The silence seemed to laugh at his naivety.

But despite everything he couldn’t find a way out of this. The war between the superpowers will be fought in our living rooms. The destruction will be borne by us, the glory by the Americans. The lives lost will be ours the medals will go to the Americans. The irony of the situation is that in order to establish a democratic government the largest existing democracy would be ravaged. The country will be war torn and would take decades to get back to the growth path envisaged during the beginning of the twenty first century. Three Nimitz class American Aircraft carriers would move into the Bay of Bengal by the end of the week. The number of SSBNs already in the vicinity pointed to the fact that the Americans had much deeper intelligence into the Chinese plans than they were admitting. When he spoke three days back to Richard Alder the head of Pentagon he had acted as if he was surprised at the Chinese audacity. Since that time the Chinese had advance much beyond Tawang and India was just expressing denials of any such thing, hoping against hope that their objective is just to give us a scare and having achieved that would withdraw their forces and go back. But earlier today the Chinese Premier Lai had declared open war. With this agreement with the United States we were letting them fight the Chinese while we take care of the Pakistanis in the west.

Something had to be done and soon. The war had to be fought he knew. But fighting multiple foes on multiple fronts he knew would be a different ball game. Was there something that he was overlooking. Is there some place else that he could look for help. He put another cube of ice in his scotch. He took a sip and sat down in his chair looking up at the roof. Then a sudden thought came in his mind. There was another power that was looking to find its place. He got up, went to his study and picked up the secure phone and dialed a Moscow number. The silence listened to the conversation and smiled.

A cock and hen story.

I read an article which prophesy the end of the male sex with the depletion of genes from the Y chromosomes (the one that corresponds to the male of a species) from about 1400 a some million years ago to around 45 now (And you thought guys were just bad at hanging on to car keys. It’s all genetic. We just can’t help it). I wish there was an instrument to which you can just insert your finger and it would tell you the number of genes that you have in your Y chromosome. So when little Johny would come back after play time his mom would ask him to insert a finger into the machine and she’d go, “Not again Johny, how many times have I told you to take care of your genes”.

It just leaves you wondering, now what in the world did we as men do to have our gene count reduced from 1400 to 45 while women still have around 1100 left with them. You know what there’s some conspiracy involved somewhere. I don’t believe in coincidences but then it’s too much of a coincidence to be coincidental. I think it’s got something to do with all the roughing around that we do at home and work. While the missus sat at home Caveman Joe had to fight a bear with his club. And what about the sports that we men play? Look at rugby for instance. I’m pretty sure that if you go through with a fine comb you’re sure to find a couple of hundred genes from Y chromosomes lying scattered in the field after every match. And I truly believe if you do a thorough check on mallu men you’d find the gene count even lower. Generations of climbing coconut trees by hugging on to the stout trunk can’t have helped the gene cause any bit. Women I believe noticed this trend of dropping genes eons ago (I think they must have spotted it first while going through with a broom in those old cave houses. If only our caveman Joe had helped his wife with the housework then) and having realized this phenomenon, then on passed on all those gene losing chores to the men. They even cultivated something called a male ego (it’s all their creation I tell you, and if it was left to us we men wouldn’t even know what ego meant) and convinced generations of men that beating up bears and climbing up coconut trees wearing just their lungis (dhoti) would make them more of a man. And if their conspiracy wasn’t enough, nature decided to play a little trick on us (Well what else can you expect from ‘mother’ nature?), it’s just us men who have to do all that shaking after every visit to the loo (oops, sorry restroom) which itself must have over centuries caused a couple of hundred genes to drop off.

On behalf of men all over let me announce that “Women, your game is up”. We have woken up to the greatest conspiracy in human (even animal) history(I bet you would have changed the word to “herstory” in just about another million years when all men would have disappeared once and for all). The murkiness of the plot gets even deeper when you realize that the tool to replace men - the cloning machine, was invented by a man. Well we do have unparalleled skills in digging our own graves. So I say, men, let’s start a slow revolution to change things around. The next time your lady shrieks at you to hunt down that dirty black cockroach in the kitchen, let’s just let the lady scream off a few genes before we interfere or the next time she asks you to catch a chicken for the guests at dinner, let’s just make sure that it’s not a male chicken that she culls…hmm

Two teens on a train.

Most people wouldn’t remember the first step they took in life (Infact I don’t know of even a single person who does, except for my roomie AB who also claims that his first love was the little girl who took the adjacent cradle in the hospital he was born). I once overheard a conversation in a train between two moms about the age at which their child started walking. Well apparently it’s a big deal. It should be too I guess; bipedalism is not a feat achieved by too many mammals. And moreover people find correlations between the age at which that feat (pun intended) is achieved to everything ranging from intelligence to physique and everything in between. Well I was someone who learnt to do that pretty late. But once I did I was in a real hurry to compensate for all the lost time that I think I spent half my preteen years running around. And post teens I kept running around in a different way – working, studying and roaming around throughout this vast country.
So me, unlike my roomie AB don’t remember my first steps but I remember certain steps in life that were just as important in the context of my runnings. The first visit to the movie hall by myself without letting dad and mom know, the first time I ran away from home (that’s another post) and so on. This happened on my first train journey without adult supervision.
It was sometime in my teens when me and my cousin D decided to make use of our long summer break to visit another cousin in Bangalore. D was a year younger to me and you know how these youngsters are; brash, raw, and impatient hmm. So being the elder one I was entrusted the responsibility of taking care of my younger bro through the journey and back.
D was quite the ladies man even at that time. He was quite handsome, tall for his age and easily looked elder to me. Me, on the other hand was brought up with ‘sound principles’ taught by my peers in school that it’s an utter taboo to talk to a girl even to look at one, other than behind closed curtains and squinted eyes. To touch a girl accidently would lead to banishing even ostracizing by the male peers in school. The only cure to the fated girl-touch was to stealthily pass the touch onto another male peer upon which you would be accepted back into the herd and the victim is left to find another less fortunate to whom he can pass the baneful touch on to.
The first thing D did on reaching the train at Trivandrum Central was check out the reservation chart to check the obvious. I saw a familiar smile spread across his face. I knew that look. The one that I saw on Tommy’s face the day before three hens disappeared from my granddad’s place. I glanced at the chart and it was obvious what the smile was all about. Asha, Soumya and Fatima right below our names in the same compartment. D took out his pocket comb (there were days when he forgot to brush his teeth but nobody had ever heard of a day when he got out of his house without that trusted comb) and a blur above his head of two hands and a comb; voila, the slick black well oiled hair became slicker, blacker oilier. D jumped onto the train. I followed suit dragging the two heavy bags and yelling him to stop and help with the bags. Too late he had disappeared down the aisle. But when I reached our assigned seats D was as tense as a school girl on her exam day. The three girls weren’t there. It was almost past the scheduled departure time and the girls weren’t there yet. I had never seen D so tense. Not even the day when the tenth results were to be announced. But then that was just a matter of eleventh or Pre Degree. This was a matter of life and death, for sure.
His heart sank when the train jerked and started moving and the girls were still not there. He started cursing the gods. He had heard of stories from our elder cousin in Bangalore about nursing students who traveled on trains to Bangalore. Why god why.
But then suddenly his eyes turned a perfect circle and his cheeks flushed with delight as he saw three PYTs walking down the aisle. He started speculating and muttered under his breath to me. “I bet the first one is Fatima. Only muslim girls can be so fair”. Well I couldn’t say for sure. When somebody sang “Kahin pe nigahein kahin pe nishana”, it was all about me. Now don’t get me wrong, there was only so much that I could see with me face turned away at ninety degrees and the eye balls at the extreme end trying to make out how Fatima looked like. D was right, the girls came over to our coupe and took their seats and were chatting away incessantly when D interfered with a casual, “Oh thank god you girls got in, I thought you might have missed the train and was about to ask the TT to pull the chain”. The girls stopped their conversation mid way and gave him a look normally reserved for crazy people on the road, and one of them replied “Well we were down there with some of our friends, you didn’t have to worry”.
Hook line and well almost sinker.
D worked his squeezed into the conversation in his imitable style and conversation moved on the fast line. All this time I had my head turned away and gazed out of the window as if the most thrilling of Mohanlal’s movies were going on out there. Not bothering (daring would be the right word actually) to turn my head towards the conversation but my ears sharply focused on it all the time. I listened to every word of the conversation, never uttering a word and pretending to be busy in my thoughts, which went from their place of births to the mughal era and about the aalmaram (peepal tree) in kesavadasapuram junction.
Then suddenly one of the girls asked, “Hey D, by the way how old are you?”.
D had seen the girls’ age as part of the due diligence he did at the reservation charts and had found that the girls were all a year elder to him. Not even waiting to blink, he replied but increasing his age by a year and making a mental note to tear up the reservation chart outside the compartment as soon as possible.
Oh that’s cool, that’s exactly the same as ours and the cackle turned a notch up in all the excitement at the apparent coincidence.
But that’s exactly when I decided to open my hallowed mouth.
“Eda D, athenganeya ninte prayam athrem aakunnathu?”. (Hey D, how the hell is that your age?) Silence all around.
The girls all turned to look at D.
D was stunned. Caught like a cat with milk in his whiskers, he didn’t have anything to say. But try he did, “Alla Vinu, ninakku thettiyatha..” (No Vinu, you got it wrong).
But I continued, “Athayathu nee janichathu 1983il. Appam aa samayathu ninakku zero alle vayassu. Allaathe janikkumbam athine one aayittu koottan pattathillallo”. (See, you were born in 1983. So that means you were zero in 1983. Now you can’t be one when you are born can you).
Those words didn’t have an ounce of malice. It probably was the most innocent words that I have ever uttered in my life.
D somehow pulled of the greatest escape act in history (I mean his-story. Right from age zero to the day) and somehow managed to divert attention and conversation moved to different topics. The glare of his eyes had told me that I had committed some blunder and I didn’t dare open my mouth again. Embarrassed more than he was I just walked up and took off in the direction of where I thought the pantry car was.
By next day early in the morning when the train was pulling into Bangalore cantonment station D had the phone numbers of all the three girls. Proud as he was about his achievement especially after the unexpected disaster in between D was all a proud red when he saw off the girls at the door of the train (We were getting down at the Bangalore city station). The train started moving and D was still at the door waving goodbye when the three girls smiled and said in unison,
“Bye bye Aniya1…”
Aniya – is mallu for little brother.
PS: D didn’t speak a word about the incident for more than a decade but half a bottle of whiskey did make him open his heart about that most heart breaking of incidents of his life.
PPS: D did keep in touch with all of them for another three years and he wishes to inform them that he lost their numbers and would love to get back in touch.

Fame in the times of Cholera - Ten ways to eternal glory.

I think Maya’s got it right..Maya who? Who else but behnji from the Northern Province. Every ruler would want to be remembered a great in posterity. And if history has taught us anything it is that to be remembered great, you’ve got to build stuff for archeologists to dig up in the future. Or just look at this Tut built a gold mask or whatever and got himself buried in that, Nebuchadenessar built the hanging gardens, Akbar the fort at Agra. The Taj and the Great Pyramid and the Coliseum. And I guess for all the criticism that’s been thrown at Behnji for being a backward (looking) leader, I must say she has her eyes set on the future. Well it does seem so from the single minded determination with which she’s building shrines to herself all over Lucknow, Noida and the rest of the province. The last I heard the largest dome in all of Asia would soon no longer be the Gol Gumbaz as history books taught us. Instead it would be somewhere in Noida with Behnji’s name inscribed. But then I was left wondering if it isn’t all this a waste. Utterly profligate in these bleak times. I can understand the craving that every man has to leave a mark on the world even after death. But is all this necessary. Hence I started thinking of a few ways to be remembered for ever…but in cost effective ways. Here goes.

1. Make cheap copper coins with your profile embossed in them on one side and your name inscribed as the great King 'YourName' on the other. About a thousand would do. Obtain a thousand post covers and five rupee stamps for each. Put one coin in a cover, paste the stamp and send it to random addresses in thousand locations around the world.

Eg: To, Mr. Cherian Nair, American Junction, Newyork, America.

Not finding the recipient the letter and with it the coin would find its way to some dump yard soon enough. This way coins with your name and profile embedded would be in around 1000 locations for future archeologists to dig up.

Cost of fame:

Coins @ Rs 10 per piece: 1000 X 10 = Rs10000

Post Covers @ Rs 5 per piece: 1000 X 5 = Rs5000

Stamps @ Rs 5 per piece: 1000 X 5 = Rs5000

Total – Rs 20000

2. Visit yahoo chat rooms of historic cities or cities which have historic monuments like Pisa, Cairo, Beijing, Machu Pichu etc. and get pally with one person each from these places. Convince them on some grounds, say it’s your dying mother’s last wish, to bury metallic boards somewhere near the periphery of the compound which houses the famous monuments in their city with this message inscribed in it:

“This great monument was built by/in memory of the great ruler ‘YourName’ in the year ‘Year of construction of the monument’”

Cost of fame:

Internet at Rs 15/hour and assuming it takes one hour chat sessions for a month to convince 10 such persons.

Total Cost = 15 X 30 = Rs1500

3. Build fake websites glorifying the greatness of King ‘YourName’ and host it in servers located everywhere from Kyoto to Mogadishu and in as many languages as you find translators. Pay google for ads and some ad agency for keyword optimizing your website by adding words like “Prostitute”, “sex”, “gay”, “lesbian”, “drugs”, “viagra” etc etc.

Cost of Fame:

Cost of website @ Rs 1000 per website for 20 websites = Rs 20000

Cost of Google ad. Somebody help me here. I’m venturing for around Rs 10000

Cost of keyword optimization. Again somebody help me here. Venturing for Rs 10000 again.

Total – Rs 40000

4. Have a star named after you at star registry. In the future when inter galactic travel will be made possible and some earthling will be traveling to planet Krypton to meet his uncle Clark Kent and he passes by the star with a board on it which says “Star ‘YourName’ of Galaxy-YK4533S”, he’s gonna do a google (yea google’s gonna be there even then I bet) on ‘YourName’ to find several websites (the ones that you created long ago) glorifying the great King ‘YourName’. Well I’m sure people will start talking.

Cost of Fame:

Cost of naming a star at starregistry.com = approx. $500 = @ Rs 50 a dollar = Rs 25000

Total Cost – Rs 25000

5. Spread emails saying King YourName,  dying king of different lands like Siberia/Nigeria/Tasmania/Albania/Lithuania is seeking heirs for his unfathomable wealth. Please forward this mail to all your loved ones who shall all receive a piece of it.

Cost of Fame: Again Internet rate at Rs 15/hour. Assuming an hour’s usage to send the mail.

Total cost = Rs 15

There’s your low cost solution to eternal fame. What? I promised 10 but I’m just giving you just half of it? I though you’d be used to such promises. Like what your HR department said when u asked for the variable pay promised at the end of the year. Well a sign of the times. :)

But at least here I am offering you a complete fame solution for just about Rs85000. That’s probably lesser than the cost of one raised bronze finger on those several Behnji statues that’s dotting every gali, nukkad and pan shop in the Northern Province.

These are desperate times and it calls for desperate solutions. But dreams need not be cut short in times of recession do they. Just reach up and touch the stars. Behnji seems to know.

She knew her way...

Elaine was fidgety right from the morning. She was alone at home. DJ’s mom was staying with him and it’s been more than a week since she had some alone time with him.

Screw the hag. No, repent. Take it back. She’s going to be your mom-in-law.

The marriage was three months away but DJ and El were more or less like a couple for years. She had always proclaimed that she’s never going to get married. It was pointless as far as she could see. And worst of all marriage itself was a patriarchal institution designed to breed a culture of female servitude. But ever since that milestone of turning 30 started looming before her like a deathly shadow she had started contemplating giving in to the idea that her conservative parents had been trying to buy her into for the past eight years or so; ever since she graduated from IIT. 

She liked to think of herself as a self made woman. Right from an early age she had tried to be self reliant. Yes her parents had paid for most part of her tuition fees and other expenses till college but unlike most others in her neighborhood she didn’t make them buy her expensive clothes or cosmetics nor did they have to dish out anything for donations for her college admission. No not even tuition fees for coaching classes. Her NTSE and other scholarships had paid a part of her college fees. The highly skewed (in favour of men) male-female ratio in the IIT had only helped fuel her feeling of self reliance. She had fought against the odds and made her mark in what was believed to be a man’s world. She knew how to hold her own among men. And later in the corporate world she had smashed every so called glass ceiling that she had encountered. She felt like punching his nose out once when a colleague of her suggested that she got her way around because of her good looks. She had given him a sound hearing and he had never dared cross her ever again. Looking back she could see that she had pretty much done what she had planned as she first walked through the gates of IIT Kanpur. She remembered that first day. The single engine training Cessna taking off from the airfield inside the IIT had her thinking of her school project where she had made a model aircraft piloted by a remote control and her best friend Priya, who had decided to join an airhostess academy after her 12^th. It was her idea that they team up to build the model plane. If she was so crazy about flying why didn’t she go for Pilot training instead of being an airhostess, she had asked Priya. The reply was “That’s not for girls, El”.

She hated weekends and this was a particularly long one, Christmas being on a Friday. She was stuck at home coz her car was in the garage and had decided to stay at home in her bed for the Saturday night instead of Geoffrey’s her favorite watering hole.

Mental Note: Don’t give the car for service anytime before Christmas or for that matter any major holidays.

It was one in the night. The cold was biting into her despite having downed at least four drinks since the dinner. She reached for the pack of Marlboro lights but found it empty. Well trust a pack of cigarettes to let you down when u most need it. But she had backup. She scrounged her bag, there had to be a few left from the joints that DJ had given her last week. Success. She smoothened out the wrinkles on the cig and lighted it. She took a long drag and kept the smoke inside her lungs for some time until she could feel her nerves calming down a bit. Without exhaling the smoke she took another drag in. This was good stuff, she thought.

Half an hour later she was still awake. The dark room was filled with cigarette fumes and she felt suffocated. The TV was also on in the drawing room. She was feeling as fidgety as before. She wanted to be with DJ. She reached for her mobile on the night stand and dialed his number. After what seemed like a hundred rings DJ’s sleepy voice answered.

“Haan kudiye kai zaala?”

She wasn’t in the mood for his broken Marathi. “Deeraj, just shove it ….”, she never liked him teasing her Marathi upbringing. But he loved doing it none the less and had in fact secretly put in much effort to learn the language. But she had called him “Deeraj” and that meant she’s really not in the mood. “Listen, DJ get your ass over her now, I’ve got to see you”.

“No way, I’m not getting out in this cold. And I don’t want to explain to mom the reason for my disappearance in the middle of the night. She’ll wake up the minute I turn the key on the ignition and there won’t be any going out for as long as she’s here”, he said.

DJ had a point his mom hadn’t taken well to the fact that he’s getting married to a Bombay bred Christian girl. She had lined up a list of homely Jain girls for Deeraj her only son when he decided to announce the shocker at home.

What the heck, if he’s not going to get here I’m gonna be there. She didn’t say anything more but slammed the phone down. DJ knew that wasn’t a good sign.

The digital clock on the nightstand showed that it was ten minutes past two. Going out at this time in Delhi in a taxi wasn’t safe, she knew. This was where she liked her hometown of Mumbai much more than Delhi. Raj, yea he could take her to DJ’s place. But the only thing is that she didn’t want to ask him for a favor. But she knew how to have her way around him.

Raj was a colleague in office. He pretended to be a perfect gentleman in front of her but she knew he wasn’t. She’d slice open a person, have him diagnosed with one look, a two minute conversation and a shared fag. That was her fool proof process of judging a man. It had never failed her.

She picked up her mobile again. Checked the twitter feed for anything interesting. Changed her status to “Out for a fox hunt”. Then dialed Raj’s number.

“Hey Raj, Elaine here. Hope I didn’t wake you up”

Indiscernible voices on the other side…finally there was a reply “Hey El, No no I was up reading a book, how are you?”

El knew he was lying, and that was what she expected him to do. “Raj, I feel like having a drink how about coming over?” Again she knew what the reply would be. And it was validated by the front door bell.

Raj was practically in his night wear over which he had pulled a jacket, but it was obvious he had tried his best to set his hair down with a quick dash of his wet set gel and the overwhelming scent of the deodorant just confirmed that he hadn’t taken a bath this weekend.

El handed over the pint bottle of beer that she had in her hand to Raj and they sat down in front of the TV on the midsized couch. El knew exactly how to play on Raj’s weaknesses. Conversation was on mundane topics, the TV was muted but the scene showed a new on screen actress trying hard to make her mark with the usual skin show. But El knew where Raj’s eyes were. The dirty bastard; his idea of Catholic girls were probably shaped watching pictures like “Julie”. She suppressed the urge to slap him on the face and said “Raj, let’s go for a drive”. Raj wasn’t exactly keen on the idea. His chances of something happening between them were in his calculations the maximum if they stayed inside the house. But still he reluctantly agreed.

El knew that the key in making him do what she wanted was to keep alive his hopes of something happening. Men!! She thought. She pulled on her worn out blue jeans, tied her hair into a pony, grabbed her favorite jacket from the closet and started to the door. Raj was still trying to gulp his beer down and El had disappeared outside.

“Where to?” asked Raj.

“Hmm, let’s take the highway and towards Noida”, said El. DJ lived in Lajpat Nagar which was on the way to Noida. She was hoping it didn’t come to his mind. She diverted his attention by touching the label in his jacket. “UCB? Cool jacket Raj”.

“Oh you like it? I got it when I went vacationing to New York during Diwali. My jijaji runs a store there.”

Despite the bitter cold El decided to pull the window down. Partly because she hoped the cold and the wind would clear up her head and partly because she hoped the noise of the wind would stop Raj from continuing with his blabber. But that wasn’t to be.

“Listen, El I know something is bothering you, you can tell me whatever it is.” Raj slowly put an arm around her shoulders and waited for a response. She felt as if there was a leech on her shoulder but still kept mum. A shudder ran down her spine the kind of feeling she used to get when she had to clean her bathroom drain. El decided to play along still. “Yea Raj, things haven’t been going well you know, generally”. She knew Raj would assume that things are not well between she and DJ and that’s what she wanted.

Raj grew bolder. This girl was apparently in distress. He saw his moment in that. Damsels in distress were his favorite prey. He brushed a strand of hair that was falling over the side of her face behind her ears. That was his standard modus operandi with women. He could see it working with the so far infallible El. Yes, finally this would be the day. They were coming up on the Lajpat Nagar fly over and the Yamuna appeared up ahead. The highway lay desolate stretching across the wide river bed.

“Raj Raj, are u sleeping or something. Stop the car over here”. He was brought back from the labyrinth of his sullied thoughts. What? What did she say, stop the car? Maybe she had to take a leak. No that can’t be it. Maybe she doesn’t want to wait till we get to the isolation of the Yamuna Bridge.

As soon as the car stopped Elaine opened up the door and jumped out. “I’m going somewhere, it’s just around the corner, you don’t have to come. I’ll see you on Monday then. Bye and thanks for the ride”

Before Raj could even realize what was happening Elaine had crossed the desolate road and had disappeared into a lane on the opposite side. For a minute he thought about running after her. But he knew there wasn’t any point. He had realized what the girl had done. DJ stayed in Lajpat Nagar, he now remembered. That girl was smart. Smart enough to outfox a fox like him.

Elaine reached DJ’s house. The light was on in his room. She jumped on to the guava tree in the yard and nimbly climbed to the balcony outside DJs room in the first floor. And just as she landed the door opened and DJ stood there smiling at the girls antics. “You know mom would be proud she’s getting a circus acrobat for a daughter in law”, he said smiling. Elaine laughed and gave a hard punch on his stomach as they moved into DJ’s room. “She’s getting much more than that, a fox tamer too”, she thought.

Letters from an era of 5 paisa candies.

If there ever is a Guinness record on most love letters handed over I guess I would be a strong contender for it. Ah if only it was an Olympic event, I would have probably got to fulfill one of my biggest dreams of representing India there. As a lanky school boy the only time I got to represent my school in the state athletic meet was in quiz competitions (don’t ask me why but the ICSE board had deemed quiz fit to be conducted as part of the athletic meet rather than the cultural meet) and watching the athletes garner all the glamour and attract all the eyes I had secretly pledged that it would be the Olympics or bust for me. Turning on the wrong side of twenty five I have all but given up on that dream. The easiest step now seems to get into that chair of the President of the International Olympic Committee and pull a few strings to get my desired ‘sport’ on the list of Olympic events. Coming back to handing over of love letters, I guess I still should have the knack for it. It’s an inborn talent, it wouldn’t vanish I suppose. But the last time I tried that out was I guess fifteen years ago.

Growing up in a residential society of around fifty families has its advantages.

Choice of cricketing targets: You get to have your pick of windows to break during cricket. Fourth floor windows came with an automatic prize of an egg puffs and drinks (ahh, memories of those two rupee cold drinks).

Anytime access to food: some or the other family would always have put out those delicious pickles in the sun to dry. The Konkani family in the third floor had a particularly tongue tingling recipe for sun dried mango pickles.

Free entertainment: Now this is complicated, but I guess you young boys who grew up in pre ‘tata sky’ era would know. A little magic trick using insulated copper wire connected to your TV and attached to a twisted metal shirt hanger placed strategically near the path of your neighbor’s cable gets you free cable television. My dad still thinks I managed without TV those times during the study holidays in March when the cable connection used to be disconnected.

Acrobatic lessons: You know that quintessential water tank in every housing society on top of a tower. Yea, even ours had one of those. It stood above even the tallest buildings in the society. And not many of my creed (that’s 12 and stupid) dared climb up the 88 rungs of that ladder to its top. Let me confess now Mukundan uncle, (he was the secretary of the residential society) it was me who threw all those plastic bags in the tank that blocked the water supply for three days. And also for the record that cricket ball that hit the back of your neck (he had to walk around with a neck collar for a week) , was intentional. And in those days if your Bajaj scooter refused to start in the morning it was probably because early morning pee (A lot of boys my age in that society perfected their aim on Mukundan Uncle’s scooter’s petrol tank mouth) and petrol didn’t mix properly.

But probably the biggest advantage of all was that you had guys and gals aplenty of your age to partner with in a thousand crimes (Don’t worry Jerry I’m not confessing to anything here). This brings me back to those love letters. Me being the innocuous little boy was the preferred love letter carrier for many hot blooded young turks in the society who decided to try their luck with the pretty maidens there.

There was this chechi* in the society, let’s just say ladyB. Now ladyB was 18 at the time and I was 12. She was the prettiest girl I knew. Her long frocks (ala Kavya Madhavan’s when she skipped across the green fields of paddy to the tune of a valluvanadan* song) as she walked in grace used to send my heart a fluttering. I was her only true friend (from among those other 12 year olds who used to ogle at her so rudely) and we used to have these intellectual discussions (I wanted to let her know that I was extra mature for my age and convince her that the idea of eloping with me is not entirely preposterous) every evening as it turned dark and the regular games of kallanum-policum (chor-sipahi) with the ‘kids’ was done. I saw myself as her guardian and wouldn’t bear it if any of the boy talks (and at 12 believe me there are many) started drifting to any‘thing’ to do with her. Sorry Satish for that broken tooth. Pals? now that neither of us got her?

It was one such evening when ladyB and me were engrossed in discussions (probably about the vanity of life or the transcendent nature of love) that Arunchettan called me. I hated that a*****. I was one of his primary ragging targets as a five year old (I spent more than a dozen years in that place), but now that I was all grown up we were buddies (or so he thought).

Arunchettan: Vinu kutta* how are you da, long time. We don’t spend time together anymore kutta.

Me: (Can’t you see that I was with my lover) hehe, yea ArunChetta, how’s your college going. Mom was telling me that you got into Engineering college (his dad in the gulf must have paid lakhs for that seat).

Arun: yea its great da..Vinu, do me a favour my man. Give this letter to someone wont you?

Now I’ve acted as a courier service to Arunchettan several times before (never knew what happened of it all) and I was glad to take up the call to what was now almost a vocation.

Me: Oh anytime chetta*, ippravashyam vellathum nadakkumo? (Will something happen this time?)

The bloody Casanova had raised his targets now that he was an engineer to be. As soon as he said that the letter was for ladyB the blood started boiling in me. My eyes bulged and the little sinews stretched and the next thing I knew, I had thrown myself at him and had knocked him over from the ledge he was sitting on. I was scratching his face with my finger nails and was about to bite his nose off. But Arunchettan was thrice my size and a regular at the local gymkhana. He regained his composure after the initial shock and just lifted me and threw me away as he would do a pillow. And before I even got back to my feet he was pounding my face with his huge fists.

A crowd quickly gathered and ladyB was also among them. Somebody pulled away Arunchettan from atop me. My spunk had still not been driven out (not a thousand of those mighty punches would have done it that day), and I was like a Doberman (some might call a dachshund, because of my size but hey I know better) tugging at its leash. I yelled out all the abuses that my ‘refined’ pals of the housing society had taught me.

“eda, patti (you dog) how dare you write a letter to ente pennu (my girl)”. I saw ladyB’s look change from wonder to shock, from the corner of my eyes.

Fifteen years ago and that’s how I sacrificed my career delivering letters. Well it didn’t go to waste. Arunchettan as far as I know never dared give a letter to ladyB. But on the flip side ladyB’s parents married her off before she turned 20. I was heartbroken and didn’t have dinner that night of her wedding despite mom having made her special fried rice and chicken curry. But all wasn’t lost. LadyB’s sister was coming back from her nursing studies the next month.

*chechi - elder sister literally but used for any female who’s older than you

*chettan - elder brother literally but used for any male who’s older than you

*valluvanadan- pertaining to valluvanad which I guess is somewhere in north Kerala.

*Kavya Madhavan – Mallu actress.

*kutta – affectionate name for a small boy (nothing to do with kutha in hindi)

PS: Mukundan uncle thankfully didn’t have burly sons who’d have otherwise shown me the righteous path. But in case he has grandsons of the type, please hear me out, you would have done the same had you been in my position. 

A Call across the Teesta...

Siliguri is a blink and you miss sort or town. A curve in the road, a couple of bridges over fast flowing rivers, shops on either side, mountains in the distance. Except for me it was my destination and I couldn’t afford to blink. It was around five in the evening when we got out of the bus and collected our baggage from the rack. After eighteen hours in the rickety bus from Kolkata Gaurav and me were really looking forward to resting on a flat bed, but the journey wasn’t yet over. Gangtok was another three hours from here and the last buses up the mountain left at three pm. It was as if everything that could go wrong was in fact going wrong. We had missed the train from Kolkata yesterday. Blame it on the mercurial traffic. Salt lake to Sealdah station in normal days took not more than half an hour. Yesterday it took us one and half painful hours. We then went to Ultadunga hoping that we could hitch a ride on one of those private buses to Gangtok or Siliguri or Darjeeling. We had four days off, and really didn’t mind where we were going. Having stood for an hour at Ultadunga it became obvious that we wouldn’t be going anywhere from there, and on someone’s suggestion decided to go to Esplanade and check our luck from there. Esplanade was from where all the long distance buses started. We managed to get two seats on an ‘additional’ (which actually meant ‘makeshift’) bus to Siliguri. The rickety bus broke down twice on the way and eighteen hours later dropped us off. Stepping out of the bus we were swarmed by beggars, hotel agents, taxi walas and various peddlars of goods ranging from children’s toys and Darjeeling tea to ganja and charas. We practically swam past that crowd to a nearby tea stall and sat down on a wooden bench.

Rain was like a curtain in the backdrop. It was always there and even in the summers of Bengal you wouldn’t be surprised if it turned dark all of a sudden in the evening and the clouds burst with mighty vengeance. Right from the time we started it was there flirting romantically and threatening furiously at the various times. Here in the valley it was floating in the air. Tiny droplets almost moved in the wind rather than come crashing down with fury. I sipped down my second tea, served in little round cups of clay, my mind trying to figure out the course of action. We didn’t have hotel reservations in Gangtok, and not sure if we’d be able to make it up the mountains and beat the falling darkness to our destination. Gaurav wasn’t the one who’d normally keep his mouth shut, but the mood of the day seemed to have got to him too. I saw him gazing intently at a snail making its way to a hole in a fungus infected piece of log. The tea done and seeing no point wasting any more time we set out to find someone who would take us up to Gangtok and managed to find a Sumo already filled to the brim calling out for more passengers. We got two seats in the back which faced sideways and were absolutely cramped for space as there already were two others there. Three hours through the winding roads in this wasn’t exactly going to be a pleasure trip.

My mind wandered, thinking of holocaust and concentration camps and lines of trucks and rail wagons with people cramped like sticks in a matchbox. The taxi started and we sped through a well paved road with an overhead canopy of thick trees making the driver switch on the headlights. But soon enough the road began to wind as we approached the base of the mountains. The lowest folds of the Himalayas were fairly nonthreatening. It was much like the demure façade of a wicked witch almost enticing you to come closer before it revealed the jagged ridges and jutting rock faces.  I get an eerie feeling whenever I start on such mountain journeys; I guess remnants of several trips to Munnar gone bad long long back. The road started twisting and turning as our Sumo boldly took on the hills and the Teesta soon appeared to our right almost in reassurance to keep going. And almost as if inspired by it a Sikkimese girl who sat in the front with the driver and two other girls started singing a hindi song in a sing-song Sikkimese accent and a strangely soothing nasal voice. Apprehensions of a treacherous journey melted away and I was soon drifting off to sleep and didn’t notice the darkness envelope us and the rain getting heavier.

We were nearing Gangtok at around 8, when I was brought back to consciousness by a vicious turn in the road. To my amazement the Sumo had shed many of its passengers on the way. The group of girls an old couple and we were the only ones left now and Gaurav had moved into the middle row of seats and was chatting away excitedly to the singer girl, whose name I later found out to be Ganga.

Gangtok was a typical hill town with one arterial road, a mall road and a market. Gaurav had talked with the driver of the Sumo who agreed to take us till Lachung in North Sikkim the next day from where we could hike to Yumthang to the origins of the Teesta.

The next day we started very early in the day and I was surprised to find Ganga and the other girls also were traveling with us. This time Gaurav and I took the seats up ahead with the driver and the girls were sitting in the middle row. The distance to Lachung was just about 125 kilometers but it would be a whole day’s journey through treacherous terrain made accessible through the snaky roads of the Border Roads Organization.

Half an hour into the journey, bending a curve we saw the first glimpse of Kanchenjunga in the distance. The majestic snow capped peak glimmering in the golden morning light was magnificent. Throughout the journey our driver, Lapang Sherpa, a young man of 21 was chatting away as if we were long lost friends. Ganga and Lapang were both from Lachung and they knew each other. Along the way Lapang picked up people and it seemed that practically all those people knew him from such travels earlier. He has been ferrying people and goods that route for years. Lapang and Ganga were both prolific talkers and by lunch time we had made good progress and were in schedule to reach Lachung before nightfall. We stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch which was nothing more than a small hut and the lady served us rice and chicken, which for me tasted much like that I was used to at my home.  

By around two in the afternoon we reached another small village from where I bought a pair of woolen gloves and a cap because I was having apprehensions that the flimsy jacket I had with me was going to be no match for the harsh mountain cold and Lapang advised that I should get reinforcements. But then when we were about to resume our journey we were told that traffic up ahead was stopped because of a minor landslide and it would take at least an hour or two for it to be cleared. Lapang suggested we spent more time in the village rather than get stuck in the middle of nowhere. We went back to the shop from where I had bought the woolens which also acted as a grocery store, a vegetable store and a tea stall. Gaurav bought two woolen scarves and gifted them to Lapang and Ganga, which they accepted extremely reluctantly but with much gratitude. We sat sipping warm tea flavored with herbs and spices and watched the sun slowly starting to go behind the mountains above the village.

It was almost dark by the time we started from the village and we had another couple of hour’s journey left to Lachung. Ganga started talking about her dreams of coming to Kolkata to study to become an airhostess and making it big. Lapang teased her that her life was in the village and there’s no point weaving up impossible dreams. The other girls who had started out with Ganga had got out on the way. The last leg of the journey to Lachung all of us shared our stories. Gaurav of his rather farfetched adventures of being attacked by a jaguar in Hrishikesh, me about life in Kerala which to them might as well have been in another continent and so on. By around eight in the night when we reached Lachung the small town was almost entirely dark. Lapang found us a place to stay. For dinner we had rice and a stew of all different meats thrown together, which to my surprise was extremely delicious. After dinner we bade good bye to Ganga and Gaurav made sure that she got his mobile number and asked her to give him a call when she came to Kolkata for her air hostess training. We found a place where they sold liquor and we got a half bottle of whiskey.

The next morning we were awaken by the sounds of Lapang banging on our doors. Our plan was to travel to Yumthang on our own and then travel back to Gangtok that day evening to Gangtok. Lapang had come to say that he was free for the day and that he can take us up the mountain to a place called Katao which is actually an outpost of the Indian army near the Chinese border and was forbidden for tourists. Villagers were talking of it having snowed up in Katao throughout the night and Lapang made us feel that it would be almost scandalous to come till Lachung and not visit Katao. We decided to go with our excited Sherpa friend and take a chance. The sight out of our balcony overlooking the village of Lachung was absolutely amazing. It looked like a lost village that I imagined up reading Enid Blyton’s and others’ novels as a child. The village was at the confluence of two of Teesta’s tributaries and a steel bridge over it was reminiscent of some war movie.

Our trip up the mountain to Katao started with the crossing of this bridge and it was straight up hill from there. We could see snowcapped peaks quite near and the chill in the wind was getting unbearable. I put a hand on Lapang’s shoulder and thanked him for having asked me to get those woolens yesterday. But in stark contrast to the Lapang that we had got used to, he was quite silent. I tried gently prodding him to see if he would open up. He kept his silence for some more time focusing his attention on the road and the herd of Yaks that were walking around freely by the road, and then almost when I was about to give up he started talking about what was bothering him. He told us that Ganga and he had grown up together in Lachung and that they were in love with each other. Nobody in their families knew about it.

Lapang was a darling of the village and even Ganga’s parents liked him. He was much like the run-to man in the village. But the problem was that Lapang was a Nepalese and Ganga was Sikkimese. Their parents would never agree to the marriage no matter what. Moreover he was an uneducated taxi driver, a sherpa and she was a graduate with big dreams. He said he’d do anything to see her achieve those, but this village wouldn’t be the place for it. They had to get out and that too soon. Kolkata was the most logical port of call, but they didn’t know anyone there. Gaurav and I were keen to help. We gave our phone numbers to Lapang and assured him that we’d do all we can to help. Lapang’s eyes were almost filled with tears when we said this and the look of relief, hope and anticipation combined, conveyed his gratitude more than words ever could.

Three days later we were back in Kolkata. Three years since that trip, and I haven’t heard from either Lapang or Ganga, neither has Gaurav. Our phone numbers have changed now. For a long time I kept my old Kolkata number active even after moving to Mumbai thinking that he might someday give a call. It never came.