One summer holiday I had stayed back in Dehra Dun to study. It was my last year in school and I didn’t want to waste it by going home and loaf around all day. My father arranged for a house in an obscure place called Indira Nagar. He knew that in a colony for retired people I wouldn’t find any items of distraction. Unfortunately in his quest for peace and serenity, my father had set me up 14km away from the main town!
My tuition timings were fixed; right from 6.20 a.m. in the morning till twelve noon. Each morning I caught a Vikram and took a three rupee and thirty-minute roller coaster ride, downtown. First up was Physics, followed by Math, English and finally Chemistry. Between math and physics I always kept an hour and a half free for breakfast, which I usually had at Barista. I became quite friendly with the staff there and by the end of my holidays I knew all their wives’ birthdays!
Carrying my doggy bag of a ‘Brrrista’ and a grilled sandwich, I usually parked myself in the cyber café next door. Each day I would type ‘mighty_180’ on Yahoo! Chat and expect to find a virtual ladylove, like those thousands of hopefuls who place their ads with Yahoo! Personals and expect their true love to be delivered to their doorstep on Saturday night.
However, I did meet quite a few interesting people. For instance there was this Austrian who shared similar literary tastes and an American teenager who believed Fred Durst is Jesus reincarnated. Love, however, was something that escaped me.
Before I could get bored of the devotional songs playing on the café stereo, I had to take a walk down Rajpur Road, survive the traffic of Suicide Alley and arrive at my math tutor’s doorstep. I always found Rahul “Bhappa” Singh and Anshul Wasu (couple of my school mates) hanging around his house, waiting for his previous batch to finish. They would come early to watch the chicks come out and drive away in their scooters.
We usually sat under the fiber glass shade of a video library, discussing Doscos and Welhamites (who said girls were the only ones who gossip), licking an occasional ice-cream and trying to puncture scooter tyres (So we could act chivalrous and help the girls change wheels, but that plan never worked out!).
Math tuition usually passed by in a breeze. We either discussed whether Devdas was a loser or Haseena Maan Jayegi was a better movie than Analyze This! By the time we actually opened our registers it was already time to leave.
Bhappa had an ancient crackpot contraption which only passed as a scooter because a dilapidated ‘TVS-Scooty’ sticker was pasted on one side. He lovingly called it Dhobal, after a classmate, because according to him they both ran on jugaad. We would ride down together to English tuition from Math and thus Dhobal became an intricate part of my daily life. The adventures of Dhobal are another story itself which I shan’t delve into.
Without fail, Bhappa, Dhobal and I were always ten minutes late for English. Not that it really mattered for the class always started fifteen minutes into time. Ganging outside the classroom we would spend time breaking litchis and bitching. To make matters more interesting there were a bevy of pretty girls in our batch and one fatally smote poor Bhappa. A real cutie who went by the name Piya. Bhappa was always falling in and out of love; he could never hold a relationship for more than a week – that was his record.
For the next few days Bhappa followed her scooter (hell, everyone had a scooter, except me!) in a feeble attempt to find out where she lived. However, when all the jugaad failed, Bhappa decided to adopt the good old fashioned lover boy style. The next day he came along with a single stem of a red rose wrapped in an aluminium foil like a tandoori chicken leg. The rest of us guys obviously couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and were then as useful as a toothpick in the Amazons. I couldn't stand all this juvenile mushy, mushy crap so I promptly fled the scene and walked all the way to the Vikram stand without waiting for anyone to give me a ride. I don't know what happened that day, but I guess it turned out quite well since the next day Bhappa and Piya stuck together like the 12th and 13th page of a book.
There were the evenings at Barista, the romantic walks, hand in hand, through Paltan Bazaar, gifts of expensive perfumes stolen from mummy's closet, chocolates and the like. Then it all fell apart.
It was a Wednesday. As I walked into the path leading to my math teacher's house, I saw a bent and forlorn Bhappa throwing pebbles at a bewildered dog. The end of another relationship, his longest yet – a whole fifteen days! Damn, the guy was getting better.
That day Math and English passed unceremoniously. I didn't bother to ask Bhappa what was wrong and surprisingly he didn’t say a word either. As soon as English class was over Bhappa stormed out and stood under the litchi tree with his hands on his hips. Soon another chap called Thoothoo came and joined him in the shade. The rest of us quietly slinked away. Something big was up and we decided to watch from a safe distance. Then Piya came and stood beside Thoothoo. A three way face off. It reminded me of some lines from the merchant of Venice…
A heated argument followed, but I was least interested. I would rather watch my dog fall asleep. But from what I could gather, it was a love triangle feud. Apparently Piya had been two-timing both Bhappa and Thoothoo. I don’t blame her. After all, who wouldn’t want to mufti twice at Barista in one day? I mean, c’mon she’s only human. Hell! If I was getting two free meals a day, even I would have done the same. Unfortunately Bhappa and Thoothoo didn’t quite grasp this simple logic. They spoke about truth and commitment and all that other horse manure you usually hear women say in TV soaps. Then they asked her to choose. Well let’s see, Thoothoo had a sexy new Hyundai and owned most of Rishikesh and Bhappa had… Dhobal.
Poor Bhappa in his grief stricken stupor could only murmur, “…well in that case, remember the perfume I had given you, could I have that back?”
I was really bored by now and my stomach was beginning to growl. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and I wanted to go home and have a nice lunch. Unfortunately, my ride was stuck up in a seemingly stupid argument. What was more pissing off was that they had been at it for an hour and still showed no signs of letting up!
I quickly checked my wallet and figured that I didn’t have enough money to buy a ride to the Vikram stand. Then my guardian angel came in the shape of Sakhlani.
“I don’t think they’ll manage to sort this out before nightfall, man, come, I’ll drop you off at the stand.” With a wry smile I jumped onto his scooter and thanked god for letting me out of this mess. As Sakhlani revved the engine I looked back and saw Piya bored to the teeth. I knew exactly what was going through her mind… “Guys could we sort this out at Barista, please?”
I smiled at the thought and turned my head. I felt the sweet summer breeze on my lips as the scooter raced down EC Road. We were doing seventy. I didn’t want the ride to end. I just felt like singing, so I started singing “Sun is shining”. Suddenly Sakhlani turned around and gave me a dirty look. I guess he didn’t like my singing. Well, hey, not everyone’s Elvis!
“Dude, girls are pure poison, bloody hundred percent cyanide, man. Arre, Bhappa and Thoothoo were such great pals and now look what the weaker sex has done to them!”
Sakhlani was sore about the incident. I nodded my head in agreement. He took it is as encouragement.
“Bloody hell yaar, I’ve seen it in every Hindi movie. It’s always the girls who breaks up friendships and get brothers separated. What the hell yaar, I mean…”
It was too late when we saw it coming. In all his excitement Sakhlani had forgotten the road and missed the white Gypsy heading right at us. In my absolute state of shock all I could do was poke Sakhlani in his ribs. Sakhlani turned around after he saw my white face and what followed was a scene The Matrix fans would have paid to see. Sakhlani braked hard and skid the scooter to one side. We hit the road at fifty and slid down, the rough asphalt cutting into our jeans causing internal injuries which would trouble me for the next couple of weeks. We were headed right for the ditch and before we knew what had happened, we were waist deep in the dirtiest and murkiest Dehra Dun water. Sakhlani looked at me and shrugged.
I finally got to the Vikram stand; wet and stinking. Seeing my condition several Vikrams simply refused to take me! Somehow I reached home – hungry, but smarter than I had started. I had learnt a lesson: having anything to do with love is a dangerous proposition. But don’t let that take your mind off Dehra Dun roads, lest you end up in a ditch.
My tuition timings were fixed; right from 6.20 a.m. in the morning till twelve noon. Each morning I caught a Vikram and took a three rupee and thirty-minute roller coaster ride, downtown. First up was Physics, followed by Math, English and finally Chemistry. Between math and physics I always kept an hour and a half free for breakfast, which I usually had at Barista. I became quite friendly with the staff there and by the end of my holidays I knew all their wives’ birthdays!
Carrying my doggy bag of a ‘Brrrista’ and a grilled sandwich, I usually parked myself in the cyber café next door. Each day I would type ‘mighty_180’ on Yahoo! Chat and expect to find a virtual ladylove, like those thousands of hopefuls who place their ads with Yahoo! Personals and expect their true love to be delivered to their doorstep on Saturday night.
However, I did meet quite a few interesting people. For instance there was this Austrian who shared similar literary tastes and an American teenager who believed Fred Durst is Jesus reincarnated. Love, however, was something that escaped me.
Before I could get bored of the devotional songs playing on the café stereo, I had to take a walk down Rajpur Road, survive the traffic of Suicide Alley and arrive at my math tutor’s doorstep. I always found Rahul “Bhappa” Singh and Anshul Wasu (couple of my school mates) hanging around his house, waiting for his previous batch to finish. They would come early to watch the chicks come out and drive away in their scooters.
We usually sat under the fiber glass shade of a video library, discussing Doscos and Welhamites (who said girls were the only ones who gossip), licking an occasional ice-cream and trying to puncture scooter tyres (So we could act chivalrous and help the girls change wheels, but that plan never worked out!).
Math tuition usually passed by in a breeze. We either discussed whether Devdas was a loser or Haseena Maan Jayegi was a better movie than Analyze This! By the time we actually opened our registers it was already time to leave.
Bhappa had an ancient crackpot contraption which only passed as a scooter because a dilapidated ‘TVS-Scooty’ sticker was pasted on one side. He lovingly called it Dhobal, after a classmate, because according to him they both ran on jugaad. We would ride down together to English tuition from Math and thus Dhobal became an intricate part of my daily life. The adventures of Dhobal are another story itself which I shan’t delve into.
Without fail, Bhappa, Dhobal and I were always ten minutes late for English. Not that it really mattered for the class always started fifteen minutes into time. Ganging outside the classroom we would spend time breaking litchis and bitching. To make matters more interesting there were a bevy of pretty girls in our batch and one fatally smote poor Bhappa. A real cutie who went by the name Piya. Bhappa was always falling in and out of love; he could never hold a relationship for more than a week – that was his record.
For the next few days Bhappa followed her scooter (hell, everyone had a scooter, except me!) in a feeble attempt to find out where she lived. However, when all the jugaad failed, Bhappa decided to adopt the good old fashioned lover boy style. The next day he came along with a single stem of a red rose wrapped in an aluminium foil like a tandoori chicken leg. The rest of us guys obviously couldn’t help but burst out laughing, and were then as useful as a toothpick in the Amazons. I couldn't stand all this juvenile mushy, mushy crap so I promptly fled the scene and walked all the way to the Vikram stand without waiting for anyone to give me a ride. I don't know what happened that day, but I guess it turned out quite well since the next day Bhappa and Piya stuck together like the 12th and 13th page of a book.
There were the evenings at Barista, the romantic walks, hand in hand, through Paltan Bazaar, gifts of expensive perfumes stolen from mummy's closet, chocolates and the like. Then it all fell apart.
It was a Wednesday. As I walked into the path leading to my math teacher's house, I saw a bent and forlorn Bhappa throwing pebbles at a bewildered dog. The end of another relationship, his longest yet – a whole fifteen days! Damn, the guy was getting better.
That day Math and English passed unceremoniously. I didn't bother to ask Bhappa what was wrong and surprisingly he didn’t say a word either. As soon as English class was over Bhappa stormed out and stood under the litchi tree with his hands on his hips. Soon another chap called Thoothoo came and joined him in the shade. The rest of us quietly slinked away. Something big was up and we decided to watch from a safe distance. Then Piya came and stood beside Thoothoo. A three way face off. It reminded me of some lines from the merchant of Venice…
A heated argument followed, but I was least interested. I would rather watch my dog fall asleep. But from what I could gather, it was a love triangle feud. Apparently Piya had been two-timing both Bhappa and Thoothoo. I don’t blame her. After all, who wouldn’t want to mufti twice at Barista in one day? I mean, c’mon she’s only human. Hell! If I was getting two free meals a day, even I would have done the same. Unfortunately Bhappa and Thoothoo didn’t quite grasp this simple logic. They spoke about truth and commitment and all that other horse manure you usually hear women say in TV soaps. Then they asked her to choose. Well let’s see, Thoothoo had a sexy new Hyundai and owned most of Rishikesh and Bhappa had… Dhobal.
Poor Bhappa in his grief stricken stupor could only murmur, “…well in that case, remember the perfume I had given you, could I have that back?”
I was really bored by now and my stomach was beginning to growl. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and I wanted to go home and have a nice lunch. Unfortunately, my ride was stuck up in a seemingly stupid argument. What was more pissing off was that they had been at it for an hour and still showed no signs of letting up!
I quickly checked my wallet and figured that I didn’t have enough money to buy a ride to the Vikram stand. Then my guardian angel came in the shape of Sakhlani.
“I don’t think they’ll manage to sort this out before nightfall, man, come, I’ll drop you off at the stand.” With a wry smile I jumped onto his scooter and thanked god for letting me out of this mess. As Sakhlani revved the engine I looked back and saw Piya bored to the teeth. I knew exactly what was going through her mind… “Guys could we sort this out at Barista, please?”
I smiled at the thought and turned my head. I felt the sweet summer breeze on my lips as the scooter raced down EC Road. We were doing seventy. I didn’t want the ride to end. I just felt like singing, so I started singing “Sun is shining”. Suddenly Sakhlani turned around and gave me a dirty look. I guess he didn’t like my singing. Well, hey, not everyone’s Elvis!
“Dude, girls are pure poison, bloody hundred percent cyanide, man. Arre, Bhappa and Thoothoo were such great pals and now look what the weaker sex has done to them!”
Sakhlani was sore about the incident. I nodded my head in agreement. He took it is as encouragement.
“Bloody hell yaar, I’ve seen it in every Hindi movie. It’s always the girls who breaks up friendships and get brothers separated. What the hell yaar, I mean…”
It was too late when we saw it coming. In all his excitement Sakhlani had forgotten the road and missed the white Gypsy heading right at us. In my absolute state of shock all I could do was poke Sakhlani in his ribs. Sakhlani turned around after he saw my white face and what followed was a scene The Matrix fans would have paid to see. Sakhlani braked hard and skid the scooter to one side. We hit the road at fifty and slid down, the rough asphalt cutting into our jeans causing internal injuries which would trouble me for the next couple of weeks. We were headed right for the ditch and before we knew what had happened, we were waist deep in the dirtiest and murkiest Dehra Dun water. Sakhlani looked at me and shrugged.
I finally got to the Vikram stand; wet and stinking. Seeing my condition several Vikrams simply refused to take me! Somehow I reached home – hungry, but smarter than I had started. I had learnt a lesson: having anything to do with love is a dangerous proposition. But don’t let that take your mind off Dehra Dun roads, lest you end up in a ditch.
