But it is my Home, homie.
The land of the most awesome Biryani.
For me, no day started without my mom's tea and no day ended without calling my friends and planning for the next day.
And when I wake up early on some chilled morning, I notice people wearing monkey-caps and shawls and walking or cycling their way to work. I see bouts of smog relaxingly settling in dense tree areas. The beautiful yellow morning sun, chasing out the cold twilight and starting the day or others. At sunsets, when I drive alongside Shaikpet Nala, I see the reflection of strip of houses in Filmnagar that lie above the small hill in such stillness, that I wonder why no painter had laid his eyes on that beautiful pond(Of course he'd have to have his nostrils blocked to catch the beauty of it on a portrait).
So one fine day, on a Telangana-bandh in late december, while my beautiful brothers and sisters were fighting for the promised land and facing opposition of the highest order both politically and financially, I gave up my plans of hitting Hard Rock Cafe with Jay, Kalli, Tripathi and instead went to Moon Rock Cafe right in the middle of Tolichowki.
Amidst awful lot of traffic, I squeeze myself, turn into narrow lanes where cyclists and motorists perform circus tricks to reach their everyday destinations and find myself in an Irani cafe. I sit down at a booth with a top-side cracked wooden table and you don't say, it stank. I order for a cuppa tea and while wondering where the fuck I should rest my elbows on the sticky table I step on something slippery. I look below the table to find some spilled tea. Swearing under my breath, I lift my head.
You would totally buy it if I told you I had fatter chances of running into the devil Himself because I happened to run into the most unexpected man to be there at that point of time. There he was, standing and staring firmly into his cell phone while profusely hitting its keyboard with both his thumbs. He did put on some weight, and his locks were longer than ever. I am not exaggerating it if I told you I thought I caught a glimpse of the hair in his nose. I sit there in total awe, while the waiter gets me my short-awaited tea with an extra cup. I jerk in excitement and call for the man I was staring at.
"Lapaki"
He wasn't paying attention. So I scream this time.
"Lapakaaaaaayeee"
The horror he held in his face at that moment totally made my short vacation in Hyderabad all the more worthy, when he heard someone take out his name with that kind of verve and vigour shook the daylights out of that guy. He knew there was only person who could shout his embarrassing name out loud and add music to it in public like that. It was like a reflex. The moment when he waited at the bus stop in Mehdipatnam besides Rythu Bazaar where we often met, with his hair tightly pressed to his skull that stank of the rotten coconut oil he applied the week before, flashed before his eyes so hardly that it almost slapped him out of the deep conversation he was having via the sms on his phone.
He flashed a broad smile at me and we shook hands like men do when they agree for a ceasefire on disputed lands.
"How are you Lapaksss..? You seem to have put on a lot of weight"
"My dear Shaikpet Shiva, you aren't the same anyway. You look more charming now. I am actually wondering why I ever didn't like you, in that sense"
"Hehe.. thanks. Wait! What?"
"Er.. Nothing.. nothing... I need some chai man, its been a stressful morning."
"Sure"
I asked him to accompany me and join my broken table for some hi-tea and he pleasantly agreed. No matter all the differences we ever had, on who was hotter - Ruqsana Begum of the Tum to tahere Pardesi fame or Pakeezah of pichuk pichuk picchamma fame. His drool always inundated when I took Paakezah's name and I liked pulling his leg. But apart from all that, I was thoroughly enjoying his company and I guess it was on our third order of an Irani Chai that he was telling me how he hated the bandhs and everything in the city, how it was disturbing his daily chores(working at Satyam Technologies).
Then I asked Lapaki to stop by at my place for some lunch. He was more than willing to. In fact he was waiting for me to ask him that. I think he drooled a bit as soon as I said 'lunch'. So we got back to my place and as all of you know, Lapaki is quite infamous to say the most awkward usher-in line. I ask him to shut up till he checks into my room and not say more than a HI to my mother. So he walks in, completely forgets what I had told him 30 seconds ago and yells at the top of his voice, "Dude you got some beer? It is so hot outside...", and walks towards the fridge and I am dumbstruck, wide-eyed staring at the fridge. He opens the fridge digs through the food and turns back to look at me with a distorted face. Before he could show any dissatisfaction about the lack of my hosting abilities in atleast stocking up a pack of beers in the refrigerator, he notices my mother standing with her hands folded and giving him a look of disgust. He says "Hi" and walks straight into my room. I follow him and the close the door behind me.
"Dood WTF was that?", I scream.
"Hey I am living a bachelor life I just got used to looking up my friends rooms and their fridges for some beer", he retorts.
"I don't know what she is going to say about all that now."
"Don't worry dude just tell her it was some stupid joke"
"And what makes you think she will buy that from me?"
"Ok try telling her that it was some scene from Seinfeld I was trying to enact. I was trying to act like Kramer. Or that weird guy from That 70's Show"
"I don't watch that show."
"That 70's Show dude. Not That Show".
"o_O"
"What???"
"Lapaki just sit your butt right over there and don't move or don't touch anything. Just sit. While I risk my life by going out there in front of my mom and getting you some, I mean a lot, of food."
"Ok."
"Are we clear on you not moving form your chair part?"
"Yep"
So I get out of my room trying to move slowly towards the kitchen all the while knowing my mom might pound on me any moment and grill me with questions about the beer incident.
I reached the dining table and in pin drop silence, I tried to serve some food in two plates and take it inside. Suddenly, something was smelling like it was on fire. My mom was in her room and the door was closed. So I filled the two plates with whatever food was on the table and started jogging towards my room and just before I jumped into my room and closed the door behind me, I was pretty sure I heard my mom's door open. I put the plates on my table and was bolting the door from the inside but I took a moment before I identified where the bolt was because my visibility was hindered with all that smoke.
Wait. Why is there smoke in my bedroom!?!?!
I turned back and was shocked to see my not-so-dear friend Lapaki had his two legs stretched across the coffee table in front of him and his left hand was holding his phone into which he was staring but what really sent shock waves through my spine was his right hand which held a burning cigarette and the smoke had filled up my room. Any moment now, my mom could walk in asking us if we needed anything. Even if I shouted I didn't need anything she would come inside to serve us with some water.
At that moment I gave Lapaki the look that I am sure shriveled his testicles. In the fear of getting himself r*ped in the back, he stood up in an instant and was looking out for something to put out the cigarette. He noticed a flower vase and he grabbed it and pointed it down and jerked off the flowers out of it but there was no water in it. He was looking at me in disbelief and I stared at him with 'testicle shriveling' look and this continued for five seconds or so when my mom knocked on our door.
Now the testicle shriveling was within me, and it was some kind of a mexican stand off with mom behind the door and me and Lapaki arch enemies (from now), were searching desperately to put out the cigarette. My mom knocks again. A bit harder. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I switch on my ceiling fan, in full swing mode and snatch Lapaki's cigg and put it out in the cup of sambhar I picked up from the dining table and then grab some magazines and start waving them with both hands around the room and kick Lapaki on the ass in that lameguy-imitates-Michael-Jackson of a dance and ask him to do the same. And he tries to do the same. Lapaki had the worst gestures in the world.
At that fraction of a second, his face was as distorted as a rotten banana skin thrown in a garbage 5 years old. And his swinging of the magazines reminded me of Archimedes shouting "Eureka, Eureka!!" and running naked on the streets of Syracuse.
After a five minute adventure in my bedroom while "The Ecstasy of Gold" was playing in the background, I opened the door. My mom seemed to have gotten over the beer incident and smiling, comes inside to give us some kheer. And some remote stink catches her nose and the look of disgust transfers right into her face. She throws the two cups on the coffee table and walks right out.
Lapaki leaps on to the coffee table and consumes the kheer like a lion consumes the blood of a spotted buck. After he finishes it, he goes to the mirror and takes my comb and presses it against his oily hair and throws it away after use.
The next scene is too obscene and cannot be described on this blog. All I can say that the look that Lapaki had, had paid off on him. I am never ever bringing that bugger back to my place again.
Thanks to him, my mom thinks I smoke and drink beer in the mid afternoons (When I don't even start till late in the evening).
Before Lapaki was kicked out of my house Lapaki did give me 5 free couple passes to a top notch New Year party and half-off coupons for Hard Rock Cafe-Hyderabad. God save the silver linings.
Dedicated to all my friends in Hyd. Especially to the one who was in that auto with me when I clicked that pic.
