‘Are you going to start, or should Daddy punish you for being a bad girl?’ This sort of sentence was probably not normally associated with the President of Gyaandostaan. Italy maybe, but not of Gyaandostaan. However, this happens to all of us at some time or another. Being mesmerized and horrified at the same time.
Shampoo couldn’t believe what was happening. Her limbs moved on their own accord, and suddenly she found herself massaging the extremely unattractive torso of the extremely unattractive President of Gyaandostaan.
‘Ah, that’s better, remove my stress. Not everyone is lucky enough to get an opportunity to relieve the stress of the President of Gyaandostaan.’
Shampoo then did what all self-respecting men dressed as women, who were mistaken for masseurs, would do. She pulled hard at the President’s chest hair.
The President winced, but seemed to like it. ‘Again,’ he insisted, like a child at a merry-go-round, ‘again, again, again.’ He went on, with each hair that was pulled out.
And then it happened, masseur and the massaged started talking. The President unlocked all his stress, which he told Shampoo was caused by that violent fool, Paul Huskee. He explained how he planned to bind Paul Huskee in some archaic parliamentary law and then he added, how if that couldn’t be arranged, Paul Huskee would have to be taken out. To which the innocent Shampoo said, ‘Taken out like a dog for a walk?’
At which point Col. Jagee repeated the line ‘like a dog for a walk,’ and then fell off the sofa cum bed in peals of laughter, starkers.
7
Let’s leave Shampoo and Jagee’s evil machinations aside and move to our love track, which for now isn’t about Shampoo and Col. Jagee.
Colleen Connor and Paul Huskey had started growing fond of each other. On a scale of 1 to 100, Paul was roughly 77, in terms of ‘madly in love’. Colleen was probably a more mature 1V. However, working up close, Colleen started to notice lots of alluring things about Paul—the way he always wiped the chair with his shirt sleeve before sitting on it, the way the sweat from his forehead rolled down his cheeks and into his mouth, the way he shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep, while Mr D’ Souza was speaking, until of course he really was asleep, and the way he swallowed beverages. He used to gargle with each sip for about 4-7 seconds before swallowing the liquid forcefully, making a bubbly sound. One that Colleen started to refer as a reverse burp. Now, when you start recalling an individual’s burp fondly (even though a reverse burp is not really a full-fledged burp, but definitely owes some sort of allegiance to the burp family. Let’s put it this way—in the reverse burp case, at least one parent was a conventional burp), then definitely, without any doubt, you are getting soft on the individual in question.
The couple was of course mostly surrounded by henchman and supporters. So, the initial romance was in crowded rooms. Crowded rooms have their own rules and dynamics for romance. Holding a gaze, passing stationery, and stepping on toes.
Stepping on toes may sound like a village in England, but has its own origin in nearby Flanders, where it went by the name ‘footsies’.
In Flanders, during the town dances, men and women were lined up at opposite ends, like prisoners about to be shot. Obviously, many would have preferred being shot to dancing. During the event, the male would choose his partner by standing on the foot of the girl he desired. He then pushed down with all his might. If she could take on his weight, they danced. If on the other hand she squealed in pain, he’d stand on her other foot just to ‘make a point’. Paul and Colleen found that footsie, on a crowded table, was as a contact sport, hard to beat. Of course, like all contact sports it came with its own set of challenges.
The first time they played, the sequence went like this: Paul’s left foot on Colleen’s right one led to Colleen’s left foot on Paul’s right one. This led to Paul’s left foot on Ray Chow’s left one. So Ray Chow’s right foot landed between Amama’s right and left ones. Amama’s angry right one grazed Shabbir Hoossein’s upper thigh and Shabbir’s right foot made a beeline for Amama’s groin. Ray Chow’s knee smacked D’Souza’s knee, and soon everybody started kicking Shampoo, including Colleen and Paul.
But with practice, the ancient sport from Flanders was mastered, and soon not just Paul and Colleen, but Paul, Colleen, Amama, Ray Chow, and Shampoo all became complete masters at it. But none of this prepared Paul Huskee for his first dinner date with Colleen Connor.
Now bear in mind that months had passed since Colleen Connor had met Paul Huskee and changed the political face of Gyaandostaan. Col. Jagee was plotting and clashing with Huskee and company on a regular basis. The Sandwich Party and Machado’s Ball and Socket Party were on opposite sides of the political spectrum. And while all of this was going on, the country’s leading newspaper The Waving Flag had requested Paul and Colleen for an interview together.
But, first a word about The Waving Flag—the word being ‘fraudulent’. The Waving Flag was owned and run by Col. Jagee’s family. Set up by his grandfather, it was initially named after his grandmother and called The Seema. This was during a phase when grandfather Jagee was madly in love with grandmother Jagee and in his blind devotion, tended to call everything after his beloved.
Col. Jagee’s two aunts were called Seema. Of course, people felt he was taking it too far when Col. Jagee’s dad was also renamed Seema. Soon after, 3 public parks, 7 roads, 5 national awards, as well as the national bird—a Pelican—were all renamed Seema. Some say Col. Jagee’s father never recovered from this change, although there is enough proof that the Pelican did.
When Col. Jagee came to power, he rectified this, and changed the name to ‘The Waving Flag’. He wanted to call it The Jagee initially, but was convinced otherwise when every single employee quit on the spot.
The Waving Flag now acted like all newspapers should. It had three rules. Col. Jagee had to be mentioned 22 times at least, and in the Sunday edition 24 times, and also that his quadruple chin should be halved in photoshop before appearing in the newspaper. Besides, no one was to be shown bigger or taller than the President in any picture, not even if it was an animal.
The Waving Flag was constantly taking digs at Paul Huskee’s gang. So this interview was looked upon as a peace offering of course. Paul Huskee took out a little insurance. He was videotaping the whole thing, and would be feeding it to the rival newspaper The Glasnost Times.
This paper was run by a Russian immigrant called Andrei. (For some reason all Russian immigrants were called Andrei in those days; these days they are all called Vladimir. ) Andrei was a big fan of Mikhail Gorbachev, and he tried to honour his hero as well as the free world by naming the paper after a word which made Gorbachev famous. This initially confused his publishers who were adamant that Times was an English word. Truth be sought, nothing was known about Andrei. Where did he come from? Who were his friends? His profession? Hell, no one had even seen him speak Russian.
Although a much smaller paper, Andrei made sure he kept the dream of free speech alive, and obviously tended to side with Paul Huskee and gang.
The interview was set in a fancy restaurant called ‘The Wild Bore’. Thus Colleen and Paul were finally on a dinner date together, though not really alone. About 7 photographers, PR persons, 3 managers, and 8 staff members were on hand. Paul was most surprised to see his interviewer—Col. Jagee himself.
When Col. Jagee entered The Wild Bore, the mood of the room got real sombre. All the staff jumped to attention as he had his early Mussolini face on. This is the one he used when he was completely devoid of humour, as opposed to just devoid of humour. People started running helter skelter, trying to look busy. It’s a great gift to bring negative tension into a room. Col. Jagee had this gift.
Jagee sat down on the vacant third chair and started removing his shoes, then his socks. Then, as an afterthought, he put his shoes and socks back on, not in that order. All this time, he didn’t offer any formal greetings to the other two. Since the conversation was recorded, I can swear on 75 percent
of my ancestors that what you are about to read is true word for word. A copy of the interview is available in the Bey Central library. So when you’re in Gyaandostaan, you can check it out for yourself. In fact it would be fairly accurate to say that close to 40 percent of all events in this book may have actually or may not have actually happened. Col. Jagee was caught a little off guard when Colleen spoke first. Her tone was rabid and judgemental. Two fine qualities.
C: ‘Fired your journalist because he didn’t mention you 74 times in his last column, Mr Jagee?’
Col. Jagee hated being called Mr Jagee. After all, he had gone through hell to get his title without really serving the forces, so much so that sometimes he wondered whether it would have been better to have just joined the army.
J: ‘As usual your facts are as wrong as you yourself are. Let me correct you, its 22 times and no one has been fired yet, pending inquiry.’ Col. Jagee said this with the air of a man who’d never heard of the word democracy. Although he secretly made a note to himself that 94 times seemed a better number.
P: ‘Yes, but Colonel, why did you remove your shoes and socks and then put them back again?’
J: ‘I don’t know about her country, but in our country it’s called “airing your feet”.’
Jagee delivered the line like a stand-up comedian delivering a punch, and was taken aback by the lack of laughs in the room.
Jagee made a second mental note to himself. Must get personnel to follow me around as hired laughing tracks. His broad smile to himself was cut short by cryptic Colleen Connor.
C: ‘It’s a lot better than airing his views.’
It was the first legal, lethal punch and it landed fast and hard on Jagee’s crusty visage.
P: ‘Her country? She’s more Gyaandostaani than you or me.’
C: ‘To be honest I can’t think of any country that’ll actually have him.’
J: ‘Now watch your mouth, don’t you have any decency when speaking to a head of state?’
C: ‘No. Don’t you have any decency in still being a head of state?’
J: ‘No... er... I mean yes. I mean er... you know what I mean.’
C: ‘Paul, d’you know what he means?’
P: ‘No, do you?’
C: ‘No, bet you, even he doesn’t know. Mr Jagee, do you know what you mean?’
But by now she was talking to an empty chair, as Col. Jagee, head of state of Gyaandostaan, had walked out of his own interview in a huff. His last mental note was to cancel the human laughter track.
And that’s how Paul Huskee and Colleen Connor finally got their very own special dinner date, and what a euphoric mood they were in!
It was a huge moral victory. Mussolini had baulked; Italy may soon be theirs.
Once the newspersons and the hangers-on had cleared Colleen and Paul went to town, they drank everything on the menu card. Thrice.
Paul, of course, was waiting for Colleen to be quite inebriated before making his move. But soon, Paul was falling way behind. The Alcolympics were declared open when Colleen suggested they fall on the floor, assume the push-up position, and alternate sit-ups and push-ups. This was done by placing the drink under one’s chin, whilst attempting the push up. Colleen worked up a furious pace. Paul, whose last push-up was 4V years ago, had trouble keeping up. Irish drinking manners would soon triumph over Gyaandostaani ones. And keep in mind Gyaandostaani drinking customs were handed down by one of the great drunkards of history, Alexander the Great.
Next was the dancing. Colleen kicked her shoes off and asked Paul to join her by doing Arab springs across the room.
Sadly, Paul was not used to dancing on the table. Then Colleen insisted on the one-legged dance. In this old European art form, you dance on one leg whilst your partner holds your other leg. Soon, both partners are holding each other’s legs, and though movement is limited, it can look quite pleasing to the eye, especially if the dancers are crabs.
In all this, Paul, ever the professional, kept telling himself, ‘Make thy move, make thy move’. Paul found that as he got more drunk, he tended to use more archaic prose. In fact, to be totally fair to Paul, he was about to make his first move, when Colleen raised his right leg, which was trapped between her left leg and left hip, about seven inches more than bodily possible for any one life form barring amoeba.
Then Colleen insisted on the one-legged dance.
It was Paul’s first attempt at the Fosbury Flop, and one can say that in most certain terms that he hadn’t quite mastered it. As he lay on the floor, eyes fixed on the ceiling, all he could tell himself was, ‘Make thy move, make thy move’. Since the couple was now quite clearly the centre of attention, restaurant patrons, and staff gathered around them, egging them on. It was a moot point in Gyaandostaan that whenever the rich and famous wanted to have a good time, nothing was too much, nothing morally reprehensible or beyond the pale. For the ordinary Gyaandostaani, it was a different story.
Then it happened. As the crowd formed a horse shoe around the sanguine Paul Huskee, he himself did nothing to encourage the slow hand clapping. Soon he sort of realized it wasn’t for him. Colleen descended from the table and took a predatorial gait, like a lioness, slowly but powerfully marking her run-up. She flung herself on the prone Paul Huskee. Their eyes met, as her heaving bosom lay on his confused chest. Paul kept on rambling incoherently about his ‘move’. Then both came to that magical point where proximity tests romance. It’s when you’re so close that you either lock lips or break away awkwardly. Colleen pursed her lips, Paul closed his eyes and then he screamed. Colleen was off him and laughing. The audience that had gathered about was hysterical with glee.
Paul continued screaming as Colleen had landed on him. She reached behind his head and put a whole lot of ice cubes down his back. Paul slithered like a drunken snake, making the most effete of sounds, until some well-meaning staffer helped rid him of his cubes, although perhaps a bit too enthusiastically for someone of the same gender.
Colleen helped him to his feet, and then immediately challenged him to a game of strip-shots. If you finish your shot second, you remove a piece of clothing. Strong-willed as he was, Paul kept telling himself, ‘Make thy move, make thy move’. He knew he had it in him to ‘seal the deal’. And he did seal the deal, if by ‘seal the deal’ you mean lying naked in your own vomit on a restaurant floor at four in the morning in front of seven of the finest photographers in the country.
8
Col. Jagee kept pacing the floor of his office. This by itself was not odd, but for his insistence of having Shampoo in the room at the time. He had got increasingly fond of Shampoo and felt a level of comfort that he didn’t feel with anyone else. Hence, pacing up and down in his office wearing only his socks was the ultimate signal to Shampoo that according to Col. Jagee, Shampoo was ‘cool’. And it’s not like he asked Shampoo to join him. Amazingly it wasn’t like a sex ad. Shampoo, as for him, was like part of the furniture. Furniture that he could finally trust. As a leader who was being challenged, he had started becoming highly suspicious. He was very worried about coups and assassinations. Every new room he went to, he’d shut the windows and close the curtains, then find a corner from where he could face the entire room and stick to it. In spite of all this, his proposition to Shampoo came as a shock to all and sundry. So since Shampoo was aware of the proposition, for you and I, dear reader, are shocked that everybody was shocked.
‘Shampoo, how would you like to be my food taster?’ the Colonel queried.
Now keep in mind that Shampoo got his fair share of propositions of the same sex. But never in the history of propositions had a naked head of state, save the socks, propositioned him to be his food taster. (By the way, Shampoo has requested that we refer to him by the male gender until such a time when he feels comfortable switching publicly to the female gender. Our publisher, whose best friend is a cross dresser, feels we must honour the same. )
It was preposterous, out of the question, a disastrous idea, and frankly quite
demeaning. So naturally, Shampoo said ‘yes’.
Then Col. Jagee had an even better idea. ‘Why don’t I appoint you as my cook cum food taster?’
Shampoo nearly felt his feet buckle under him, which was quite strange as he was sitting at the time. This was even more ludicrous than Jagee’s last suggestion.
Shampoo remembered he had only stepped foot in a kitchen three times in his entire life. On two of those occasions, he was trying to find the bathroom, so naturally he said ‘yes’ again.
‘Good, great, we’ll talk monies later, but obviously you don’t have to worry about the food.’ The funny thing is Col. Jagee did not mean it as a joke.
‘Now Shampoo I want to talk to you about something very important.’ With this Col. Jagee came and sat beside Shampoo and placing his hand on Shampoo’s thigh, carried on. ‘Should I wax my torso, Shampoo?’
Shampoo was now not at his most comfortable. Neither would you have been, if you had a 320-pound head of state sitting beside you, hand on your thigh, in the partial ‘nude’. Shampoo was now mostly outraged and enraged. More outraged with huge dollops of enraged attached to it. So, naturally he answered ‘yes.’
As Col. Jagee continued speaking, he started kneading Shampoo’s ample thigh like dough. Shampoo remained transfixed like a rabbit who had been drugged first being skinned alive.
‘That’s what I thought. I’m a big fan of Aerodynamics, and body hair definitely slows you down. I read an article which says upto 1. 5 percent increase in efficiency is noticed in a bare torso. Okay Shampoo (at which point the squeeze became harder), I’ve got an idea to bring down Paul Huskee and gang. It centres around Paul Huskee and my niece Bella Terrace.
Shampoo, who at this point felt he would be the first person to have died of thigh squeeze in medical history, suddenly woke up from his pain, and was suddenly all ears. Er... and a little thigh. The Col. went on.
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