Conversations-9

Hey Zack, how was your outing with your GF?

No great shakes, birdie! A bland routine call. She wanted a few bucks to tide over some personal hygiene purchase stuff…. Month end, you know? Forget it. You will never know.

Don’t get hyper. I know you, doggie! … Oops! Sorry.

That’s the spirit.

You are supposed to tell me Vinod Uncle’s weekend happenings?

Why not? .. Hang on. Let me satiate my thirst.

(in whispers) Look at how he is slurping milk from the bowl. Cold stuff. I can drink with my beak with less noise. See he is using his tongue – making a lot of noise. Indecent doggie! Talks as if he is great guy! Show guy!

Ready?

Of course.

Let me tell what they – Uncle Vinod and Boss – did this weekend. Their job got over partially – the English part and they wanted to chill out with those who helped them.

You know their colleagues?

Some I know. Some I don’t. Does not make a difference. Whoever the unknowns, the party is ours – I mean Uncle Vinod and Boss. I know how they behave. Past experience.

What they did?

Here’s something I will read it to you. It is from Boss. “Once again, Vinod was insisting me to go to that Mallu joint – Kalpaka”

What is Mallu joint? What is Kalpaka?

People from Kerala are called Mallus affectionately. Very enterprising people. Kalpaka is a three star restau-bar in Bahrain. Restau-bar is where they serve liquor and food. Understand?

Yes. Why Boss does not like Mallu joints?

He does not like Mallu food. Boiled rice, too much coconut in everything. … He is married to Palghat Brahmin. So he cannot afford to hate Mallus. Once I overheard that Boss’s parents lived in Palghat before he was born.

Must have been a century ago.

Mind your tongue. Boss is not 100 years old. He is young at heart and soul.

Okay. Let us not fight over unnecessary things. What they did at Kalpaka?

What a stupid question to ask? What you do when a bowl of grains and water is kept in front of you? Use your birdy brain… You eat… You drink. Isn’t it? … Men do the same thing.

They eat grains and drink water? Then what is the big deal?

Brilliant question. While you and I eat and drink and relax, men make a mess. Let me put it this way: they make an ass of themselves. They dance. They talk louder. Absolutely meaningless talk. Boast and brag. Imagine things and tell tales.

You mean they begin to act?

You can say that…

Are you hinting your Boss was not his sober self?

I won’t be surprised. Men when drunk do all such things. … I have authoritative info on that. One, theoretical. Another practical. Can I share with you? You won’t tell anyone? Agree?

Done. It’s a promise.

You know Boss’ daughter studying psychology?

Everybody tells so. Never seen her touch a book on psychology. I can say this authoritatively becoz I live in her study-cum-living room. Most of the time she spends painting pictures. Nude pictures. Some pictures I can’t make head or tail of it – what she keeps talking about as ‘abstract’. Listening to some stupid hard rock. Bloody noisy stuff. Meaningless lyrics. So, what about her?

I crosschecked with her about what happens to men when they get drunk. She read out a passage from one of her most-thumbed through book. From my understanding, their brains go berserk when sozzled up. So they forget their normal behaviour and act funnily.

Okay. What is the practical evidence?

Again a secret. Don’t tell a soul.

You’ve my word.

Boss’s madam one day shouted at him. “Everytime I have to clean the toilet. You don’t. Why don’t you at lease once in a while?” Boss replied that he won’t. Madam retorted: “Remember that night when you were sozzled up and puked all over your shirt, pant when Frank and Unni visited 15 years ago? Remember that night when I took you inside the washing room, you fell almost into the shitting bowl and blathered?”

Migod! You spy on your Boss’ family. Blasphemous.

Look. Get this straight. I was not even born when these incidents happened. I heard from Boss’s wife. I am sharing with you. Another incident: A few years ago, Boss lost his job and could not get another one due to recession. Don’t ask what recession is? I will explain on another occasion. One night, I heard Boss’s wife telling the visitor: “Faisal, You remember that day when he (Boss) was crawling on all four inside the house and telling us to ‘get Faisal immediately. I want to meet him now’. You know it was 2 a. m. in the night and my daughter pulled you out of bed from your Noida residence and you came rushing in a taxi. He hugged you and cried a lot. You stayed that night. He (Boss) was drunk fully that night. Next morning, he woke up and behaved as if nothing had happened the previous night. He asked you, “when did you come? Something urgent? Any problems at your end?”

Oops!

Now you know what happens to men when they are drunk.

Chilling, Zack!

Okay. Listen to what happened at Bahrain during the current visit.

Of course, Am curious. Shoot.

Uncle Vinod and Boss arrived around 9 p.m. They joined a small gang – 5 of them out of which they knew only two souls. Soon the gang swelled to 10. They began drinking and chatting. Everybody was taking at the top of their voice to drown some Malayalam TV broadcast blaring at Kalpaka. Uncle Vinod spoke in Malayalam requesting the restau-bar female attendants (another catch for men to throng such places) in vain.

Hmm..

They had a ball till 3 a.m. (next morning). They were so drunk, my Boss lost his marbles!

What do you mean?

Listen. They were seated in a hall with wall sizemiror on both sides. Boss was getting worried because everybody was shouting at the top their voice. He felt the people at the huge table behind him might get upset. That group was also having a party. Same numbers. More or less same dress code. Same gestures. Ordered more or same food. He tried to hush hush the group to talk in lower voice so that people at the other table were not disturbed. Nobody was willing to listen.

Then?

At one point, he signaled at the female waitress. Don’t get ideas! He wanted water to refill his glasses. He lifted the empty water jug in one hand and used his other hand to point to the empty jar. He felt he was talking to her in person. Actually he was talking to her mirror image on the huge lifesize mirror in front of him.

Hmmm.

The waitress saw his gestures and came from behind – understand she came from behind with a huge water jug. Boss was looking into the mirror and thrust the empty jug just behind his back voluntarily. She filled the gap –standing behind him and left. Nobody noticed anything amiss.

After sometime, Uncle Vinod – who was seated exactly opposite Boss – got up to go to the washroom. That’s when Boss saw his own image in the mirror in front. Rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Just turned around to see what’s behind him. Know what he saw?

No. What?

There was nothing. He looked in front again. The mirror in front showed the image of our big group partying. His mind has played a trick, thanks to the liquor. Except us there was no other group in that section of restau-bar. He saw the image of our own group on the mirror in front and felt another group was partying just behind us. Haha!

Funny indeed.

When they reached the Guest House, it was 3.30 a.m. While Uncle Vinod sat to watch a bit of Indo-Australia match live from Adelaide, Boss hit the bed directly.

Did he go for his morning walk that morning?

No. He did not. But he woke up at his usual time 4 a.m.

Crazy guy. To do what?

He sat up and began reading stuff from the Gurgaon Gang, his Indian collaborators – on men, women and sex. Says the Gurgaon stuff is more intoxicating than what he imbibed from bottles! Says reading that stuff makes him feel he is in his 20s!

What about the dog meat story I overheard?

Oh. That’s nothing. Koreans love dog delicacies and he advised one of his contributors to write on that. Don’t get ideas that he is going to knock me off. Know why?

Why?

In one of his regular columns, he wrote that his family consists of 4 members: himself, his wife, daughter and – of course, me!

You are lucky!

What lucky? I adore him, birdie!

More to come…