If you might remember, we'd just outrun the Base attendant and escaped from our prof's clutches. After a hearty snack of bajjis, we decided to amble along to the flyover. Here's wad happened...
‘You know it’s a far way off to the flyover right?’Midget asked. I found it pissing off that he was raising the doubt after right making the suggestion.
‘So what? Who cares? It’s not like pressed for time here; we have three hours to kill. Let’s just shut up and walk.’ I snapped.
We started walking. Just then, to truly make it an unforgettable day, it began to rain. At first we tried hopping from one place to another in a bid to stay dry. Put pretty soon we just gave in and immersed ourselves in the downpour. It was freedom the kind of which he hadn’t experienced in a long time. The utter freedom to do anything we wanted, with no guilt, no thoughts of ‘what if’, no nothing. Frankly, for those three hours that day none of us really cared where our life was going; it was all about making the best of the moment.
I don’t remember exactly what we were talking that day, but I distinctly remember it was about Ekta Kapoor’s soap serials. It began with Thangi dropping another revelation upon us, something he had heard from someone about someone. We all started making mock faces of shock, and soon conversation veered to Ekta.
‘Dude, define lame. I swear its spelt E K T A!’ said Mama, to roaring laughter. ‘Like imagine if we were in her show, and our parents got to know that we bunked Base, how would it be?’
I started making grotesque faces of horror, and shouted in a shrill voice, ‘What? What? What? And then there’ll be some obnoxiously loud music playing in the background, while we’re being attacked by obscure camera angles of the person on the screen, who’s probably making constipated expressions…’
And thus we went on, pun after pun on her. That’s when we committed our next fatal, glorious mistake. We saw this run-down garage kind of place right by the side of the road, with its shutter down. We decided to stand under it for some shelter as the rain was getting too heavy. After a few minutes, we got bored and were deliberating on what to do. The flyover was just a stone’s throw away, and we wanted to stand right at its zenith and look down at the traffic below.
That’s when Thangi said, ‘Come on dude let’s dance here right in front of everybody.’ He and Midget had a good laugh over the suggestion (we were so drunk with the moment; we’d laugh at the drop of a hat). Unfortunately Mama and I really liked the suggestion. Midget took out his cell phone, sensing a moment he didn’t want to miss. And dance we did.
‘You guys are so going to regret this dude!’ he laughed out loud as Mama and me started shaking our hands and moving our behinds, in full view of people who blatantly stared at us as they drove by. Thangi kept laughing throughout, not even stopping to say anything.
‘If my mom sees…’ I trailed off, busy thinking up new steps. That’s when Mama started doing the old hand-pointing-towards-the-sky-disco style step, evicting fresh laughter from Midget.
‘Hey guys, here’s the Johhny Bravo dance!’ I said, and jigged to the only dance step I’d ever done right in my entire lifetime. Pretty soon, I was joined by Mama. I passerby almost fell off his scooter as he stared at us. Then Mama did the moonwalk on the pavement beside the road and we were almost lying down in laughter. After that we realized that we had run out of steps, and also that we’d been soaked in the rain during our impromptu performance.
‘We’re wet anyways; let’s just go to the flyover. I can’t wait to stand on the top, giving the finger to the traffic below, while listening to the ‘Arriving somewhere but not here’ guitar solo’ Midget muttered.
‘YEAH man!!’ All of us screamed in unison. Another great idea.
So we made our way to the flyover, discussing more Porcupine Tree songs on the way. It seemed like Midget and me could never get enough of them, and we would talk of nothing else. I think we were talking about ‘The sound of Muzac’. We made our way quickly to the zenith, at the point where the flyover just about started curving downwards. The four of us stood there, and Mama put the guitar solo on his cell’s loudspeaker. As always, the solo managed to mesmerize us, and drenched in the moment, we forgot all our worries, our concerns. My mind was a churning pot of smelting emotions.
‘Why am I here? How is this helping my life?
Chuck it!! You’re with friends, you’re finally having fun, what else do you need?
Shouldn’t I be sad about doing this? Isn’t this against my parents’ wishes?
All that studying hasn’t helped you an inch. It’s eating out your life bit-by-bit. It’s how education here’s been. Worry about it on another day, just enjoy right now!!’
And so at that moment, I dropped all my apprehensions, and just roared as I raised my hands and showed the finger to all the vehicles passing underneath. Pretty soon all of us were doing the same thing. It felt like flying.
In another fifteen minutes, we were back on level ground, metaphorically too. Sobered down by the experience, the same argument was running through all of their minds. Without exchanging a single word, our concerns were conveyed to each other. I guess that’s how it is with bros, and if anything, we were that. That was when each one of their faces broke into a silent, mischievous grin and I knew they had reached at the same conclusion I had.
‘Ok, I agree we shouldn’t be doing this again anytime soon. Our country’s system will not give us another chance to help ourselves if we screw up this opportunity. Our intelligence is a responsibility we cannot let down, right? Never again’ I announced rather formally.
‘Well at least not until we’re this bored again’ Mama slyly muttered. We all laughed at that, knowing full well that regardless of what we said, this wasn’t to be the last time.
‘Yeah well, whatever. On that note, how about we go MTR, have some ice-cream on our table. We still got enough time for that.’ I suggested. By our table, I was referring to a particular table where we always sat whenever we went to MTR, a popular ice-cream parlor nearby. After a few moments of thought, everyone agreed to the plan, and we started the long trudge to MTR, almost two kilometers away, sloshing our way through every puddle we could find.
As I walked with some of the best friends I’d ever made in my life, I thought of what else could happen. I guessed we would just go to MTR, have some nice ice-cream, talk and laugh a little and get back to Base at 8.30, by which time the classes would be over and we could leave with everyone else, like decent students.
But then little was I to know that the evening wasn’t over yet. That there was an incredible amount of nonsense, stupidity and general aimlessness in store for us in the next hour. But right now, I was just thinking of the Hot Chocolate fudge I was going to have there.
What happens when you have three excessively sweet bowls of ice-cream? Some crazy shit, trust me…
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