DAD spelt with a D for drunk, DID for his female counterpart and everything she’s done for the family and DUD for the demon biker, his refugee brother. Leaving… Srinivas Ramachandran, the fourth and last part of the puzzle.
How was he to be described? Across the top was DAD. Extending downwards from the first D were I and D completing DID. From the last D were U and D comprising DUD.
Giggling, he wrote—precisely how the youngest pup is going to end up if present situation continues. There was space for only one letter between the two Ds along the bottom. Still giggling, he inserted an E, completing the square.
DED.
4. a white plastic bag
Now for an even closer look at the specimen called Sri. And what lies inside the white plastic bag.
One could call it a dumping ground, sort of like the gutter. It contained stuff from the women who loved him. These are the women he still calls the seven days of the weak. Where the weakness lies…
We pick up action on Thursday, not the day, but the woman. Sri isn’t thinking of her love for him. Quite the opposite actually, he wants to skip along.
Thursday: Malaika.
Doggy wants to break free.
Panties.
There was something about the word. Would that help this twenty-one-year-old? He didn’t know. He stroked his left eyebrow with his middle finger.
I’ve got to skip. Sure, but give it the 360, first.
He lit a Gold Flake. Like on a carousel, the word came around again. His middle finger hovered in indecision.
Should I really skip? Malaika’s irritating as hell but does that mean…? Oh, give me a sign!
And the sign came right by.
Rearrange the letters in panties. Snap Tie! Cut the cord.
Sri had lift-off, finally. He rose from the black plastic bathing stool. He’d got the nod, at least in principle.
He stuffed the snap of a girl posing with a cigarette into his back pocket. Srinivas Ramachandran was going to skip along, singing a merry song.
She’s just too demanding. A bloody extortionist! Great tits and all, but tits aren’t supposed to behave like that. Now to plan the break up!
He left the bathroom and moved towards the shared bedroom. Opening his wardrobe, he gazed longingly at the ‘Grace Under Pressure’ poster stuck to the inside of the door. The picture of an egg caught in the jaws of an iron vice had inspired him in the past. Not today!
Only one place left! The white plastic bag!
He pulled up a stool and reached between the suitcases on top of the wardrobes. Given his healthy respect for history, he was certain the past would provide the answer. He pulled out the snap again.
More than three years ago, Anirudh had escaped on a Yezdi to Pune. He returned without the bike, a few months later.
‘I had to sell the bike off to pay for accommodation, Morerayas. Either that or sleep on the footpaths of Koregaon Park. It wasn’t something I wanted to. It was something I had to.’
‘I know, Ani. Pune gets really cold. Good you sold it.’ True to form, Maurice showed steadfast devotion. ‘You don’t worry. I’ll figure out what to tell my folks.’
‘Listen, Morerayas. After you do that, I need a job, you know. Something with bikes, maybe? The amount of time I’ve spent repairing yours I’ve become an expert—’
‘I know the old Parsi guy who owns Global Motors. You want to meet him?’
After negotiating his re-entry into 101, Ganga Sagar with the goddess of trifling matters and a more conservatively attired Dad, Ani set up his job interview. A year later, without break in employment, Anirudh bought himself a second-hand Ind-Suzuki AX 100.
With the purchase of this stallion, the lanes near Ganga Sagar were ruled by only one. The rough lot from the Gayatridevi Khurana College for Girls was his immediate target. They would hang out not far away from Ganga Sagar, close to a dump (another one, not the gutter).
One monsoon afternoon, when the roads were moist with freshly fallen stuff, Anirudh got on his bike. There was a girl who’d caught his eye and it was time, as the song went, to get his motor running and out on the highway.
She was at the back of a group of four girls, eating bhel[35]. It took two wheelies before she turned to check him out. The girls surrounding Ani’s girl began making loud whooping sounds and jostled her.
All he needed was to make that fantastic first impression.
The pouch of bhel slid out of her palm. It was about to fall…
This wasn’t the Ani of old. The confusion about stages and what to do with them belonged to the past. He was sharper now. He flung himself sideways to catch the falling paper packet. Completely ignoring the small detail of a bike between his legs.
Momentum carried Anirudh clear off the skidding bike. Not clear off the piled garbage, though. He flew in headfirst. The girl whose bhel lay on the ground spat out a mouthful in laughter. The whooping noises reached their crescendo.
As Ani rose unsteadily, shaking off scraps of oily wrapping paper and eggshells, a girl came over to help. She had been smoking at the bus stop.
After parking his bike by the side of the road, she took his arm and got into the cab after him. Behind them stood a group of girls with tears of laughter running down their cheeks.
It was Sri who opened the door. ‘What’s that bloody smell?’
A woozy Anirudh pointed at the girl. ‘Ma’ll like her?’
A little taken aback, Sri replied, ‘Not if she smells like that.’
‘It’s not her, you idiot. It’s me. I fell into a garbage dump.’
‘Aaah! Anyway, can’t say anything about Mom. You know how she is. Don’t worry, she’s not around now.’
‘What the fuck does Mom have to do with it?’
Perplexed, Sri led them into the living room. It was only after Anirudh called her a couple of times that Sri figured the girl’s name was Malaika. The question—Ma’ll like her—although maternally considerate was of no relevance.
‘I’d like a smoke. Your mom’s not around,’ Malaika said. There was a demand right there but Sri didn’t notice at that time. His eyes were elsewhere.
Stirred by the view as she bent over to pick up the matches, Sri did something he’d done only three times before in his entire life. He fell in love.
For her part, Malaika liked the ease with which Anirudh’s younger brother told her to treat this house as if it were her own.
I hope you don’t forget me!
Her snap had this scrawled across its back. His middle finger returned to fidget with his left eyebrow.
I would love to forget you. Show me a way. Please.
He reached into the white plastic bag. Out came a card with a metallic orb at the top left corner. Supporting the orb from underneath was an elaborate network of lines etched into the coat of purple and green crayon. No idea emerged, just a dull aching throb.
He put the card aside and shoved his hand back in. Out came yet another of Mohina’s cards. In the eighteen months they were together, Mohina had made cards for him almost daily.
From abstract art to cartoon characters, she’d drawn and painted with crayons, oils and watercolours. Pencil sketches, too.
So classy, they hurt!
In sheer numbers, Mohina Sethi ruled the white plastic bag.
That’s me. Call me Wednesday. Seems odd to talk of myself in the third person, stranger still to call myself Wednesday but that’s just how it rolls. Anyway, time has taken my hand, yet again. Let’s take a walk my way, shall we?
Wednesday: Mohina.
‘Wag’abond finds his morning bride.
Hell hath no fury like a morning on Colaba Causeway.
On the footpath outside a popular shoe shop was where Shamshad, the corn removal expert, had his clinic. In the building above, Sri was looking at the sleeping face of Savio, his junkie friend. Savio had wanted someone strong enough to keep him away from his own money. Come morning, Savio fell asleep failing to intimidate or cajole. After checking Savio w
asn’t shamming, Sri stepped out.
It had been a long night and the spectacle ahead beckoned with crooked finger. Shamshad was renowned for tying horsehair around corns and yanking.
Sri pulled on his cigarette. A middle-aged Gujarati[36] man had just sat down near Shamshad and pulled off his socks when there was a screeching of tyres. A door was thrown open and a pained face materialised from within a blurring saree. Brushing aside protests from the man on the stool, the woman from the car showed Shamshad the corn on her heel.
The situation was fast spiraling out of control for the Gujarati man. His socks were still in his hand. His shoes, however, were out of reach because Shamshad had, mere moments ago, shifted them to increase surgical space.
The woman continued to point violently at her foot.
After a night of Savio begging for his money and being readily refused in thirty-minute cycles, this street scene looked promising, particularly with the inclusion of a most magical creature.
Several things happened all at once. Unable to bear the pain, the woman from the car tried to sit on the stool. Division of throne and kingdom not being what he fancied, the Gujarati man tried getting up.
An elderly woman with simpering eyes made her personal bid for the seat. Under siege from two women, the Gujarati was dumbstruck. The socks in his hand were not making matters easy.
Adding just the right dash of tropical charm, a beggar lady with harmonium and two small children struck up the background score. The song was patriotic in nature and if translated from Hindi would speak of crying for those who’d died for the country.
One of the children, the boy who’d just finished peeing on a street lamp, felt the Gujarati had the deepest pockets and so directed all his whining at the man’s mild face. His brother, not having the same vocal range, picked up the man’s shoes and started playing with them. The Gujarati shouted. His shoes were most likely on the verge of being nicked. Petrified, the child promptly dropped the pair right into the pool his older and currently whining brother had brought about.
Bedlam was imminent.
The Gujarati’s seat was under siege, his shoes were in pee and his socks were coming in the way of everything. Reaching pleadingly in the direction of his shoes, he stumbled and in doing so poked the whining child in the eye.
The child struck up an even higher note of wailing accompanied by the much-vaunted tear-filled eyes. Ahead, the woman from the car and the elderly woman with simpering eyes merged into a single war formation blocking his exit. Underfoot, further misfortune lurked in shape of the harmonium over which the poor Gujarati tripped.
As he fell, he clutched in desperation at the saree pallu of the woman from the car. Screaming that she was being disrobed in the middle of the street, she fell upon him. The dull sound of the harmonium as the poor man’s head was introduced to it brought into play Sri and the most magical creature.
He addressed her casually. ‘Been watching it from the beginning. A comedy of errors! An absolute comedy of errors.’
‘You find acts of destruction amusing?’
A rack of T-shirts lay on the footpath, dragged down in the scuffle.
‘I’m a positive kind of guy. I see beauty in everything. Even an exploded toilet can be… Anyways, what’s taken place is perfectly Shakespearean.’
‘Shakespearean?’
‘Hell hath no fury than a woman with a corn.’
‘God! That’s so pathetic. That’s really got to be the saddest I’ve heard.’
‘Come on. It’s a joke. You chicks get so heavy about Shakespeare. As if every word he’s written is sacred.’
‘Stop calling me a chick! And I’m not getting heavy. Your ignorance, on the other hand, is curiously refreshing.’
‘What ignorance?’
The most magical creature raised her hand to stifle a giggle.
‘That wasn’t Shakespeare. Go read The Mourning Bride by William Congreve. I think Zara says something close to it in Act III, Scene VIII.’
And Sri did something he’d done only twice before in his entire life. He fell in love. Out of the night’s travails, his morning bride was here. To save him.
Amidst accusations of rape, thievery and blinding, the first act began. Sri was on the threshold of running with a chick who knew serious shit. A bird who didn’t just talk older and smarter but looked the part too.
Thanks, man. Savio!
Being one who, as history has shown, hunts down needles first, he’d have to get rid of the Nepean Sea Road boys. Bloody pomfrets! But this magical creature did live in those waters. After giving it the 360, it was apparent his best chance was to stand out. The Nepean Sea boys might have the bucks, the fast cars and the latest threads but they didn’t have Sri’s ability to see what others couldn’t. And he’d seen that classical English literature was the key.
He started off with general questions about famous writers, their works and sources of inspiration. An awe-struck expression followed her responses. And Sri was able to shine like a beacon across the Nepean Sea. This was his entry-level strategy.
His first port of call was a deeper study of Bacon, Shakespeare and Marlowe. But surely that couldn’t be all. Other material was needed to stave off the challenge from the boys that roamed Nepean Sea Road. Throwing in other claimants to Shakespeare’s legacy like Edward de Vere and William Stanley, Sri popped the one question that turned the other title contenders into drooling idiots.
Isn’t there a good chance Shakespeare didn’t really write all this stuff?
Up against such genius, the Nepean Sea pomfrets were forced to look to their fins, call each other bad words and make for deeper waters.
And Sri climbed further up on the ladder.
Given the present intellectual tone, perhaps, the moment is ripe to ask—where did this bloody ladder come from?
The ladder was the cumulative result of being present that night when there were no panties at all i.e. the party for boys to meet girls for the first time and the diametric opposite, even if figuratively so, of the ruthless proliferation of panties in 101, Ganga Sagar.
The impact of these two states on Sri’s personal philosophy was conclusive. Females were the power behind the performance. Prospects and panties were linked like patient and tube. The tube connected to a patient always comes down from above. Things need to come down if the patient is to get up.
There was little chance the three male patients in Ganga Sagar would be allowed to get up, let alone get anywhere. This much was guaranteed by the goddess of trifling matters.
Women from the outside world would have to be roped in. Not just any women, these panties would have to be up on high. Social status and bucks were compulsory.
Don’t pull down if it don’t pull you up!
In terms of intellect or looks or real estate or even exposure, the Nepean Sea Road girl grew way higher on the vine. He patted himself on the back. He’d moved up another rung.
Pity not much grew higher on her frame.
The clock began to tick. English playwrights no longer cut it like they once did.
It was, therefore, in deep thought that Sri stared at his unfilled palms. Such contemplation was bound to exact its pound of flesh.
Perhaps the ‘Grace Under Pressure’ poster was more potent in those days. An idea came almost instantly. His exit would be poetic. He began work on a card for Mohina. The first card he’d ever made. Written in verse, he presented his case.
Played out like a tennis match, shot for shot, he wrote that she was young so was he. Her outlook was broadening so was his. Her needs were changing so were his. The only departure in this ode to equality was that his body was growing and hers was not.
The card was sealed with a kiss and posted to her address. All calls from her were subsequently ignored. Mohina came over a few days later to find out what was going on. By the time she left, she had the answer.
Sri had stuck to his plan.
Flatly put, Mohina had been dumped because she was flat
chested.
Eighteen months of forgetting all I had promised myself. Eighteen months of just getting distracted. And then… Splat! Flung like paint on a wall.
I got over this break-up, like any sensible girl, by getting hitched almost immediately. Marriage at twenty-two? Okay… that really is another story.
Reminiscing about Mohina hadn’t provided that ray of light. His fingers reached into the bag and wrapped around Yashika’s used bottle of Anais Anais: the one he’d begged her for.
A girl who used perfume was phenomenal when you were seventeen. It was so big, so womanly and so sexy. He’d wanted that fragrance to be with him like his own little fairy in a bottle.
Tuesday: Yashika.
Doggy shortens an already short leash.
‘You smell divine. I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.’
‘Doing what?’
‘This. Dancing this close to each other.’
It was New Year’s Eve. Sri and his buddies had gatecrashed a party thrown by a film star somewhere in the suburbs. How they entered nobody knows but there they were, rubbing shoulders with the glitterati of Bombay. How was Sri with a girl? Nobody knew the answer to that either. Right until 5 pm that evening he hadn’t even been cast in the film.
Compared to the monastic standards of the Merciful Saviour School for Boys, college was shocking. In almost no time at all, Sri found himself in the company of Yashika, a girl who sat behind him in class. A few weeks of sitting side by side outside of class and he arrived at the obvious conclusion. She wanted to be his girlfriend. It was only a matter of time.
It was around 9 at night, a month before that New Year’s party. They were outside Metro cinema walking towards her car. At seventeen, she drove a car and wore perfume. Sri rubbed his hands with glee. He was about to step up for the first time in his life.
Yashika tugged at her right thumb. ‘You think Shrey Ganatra likes me? Did you see the way he looked at me in the interval?’
‘Shrey? Really? Was he there? I didn’t see him. What difference, anyway?’
Something changed in her eyes.
He approached the matter a little differently. ‘You like him?’
A Ladder of Panties Page 6