Blowfish Read online

  Sampu was in a sociable mood. He wanted to forget. Every few minutes he would step out to the balcony to call Shweta and return disappointed. That was in the beginning, as the evening turned to night, I noticed that he was doing it on auto mode—we would be having the most animated discussion, he would be laughing like a buffoon and then a reflex would set in, his face would contort to the tragic, reluctant expression of a soldier who’s being forced to do his bit for the country, and he would step out to call his wife again. A few seconds later, he would come back shaking his head sadly. A couple of drinks and joints later, he was having too good a time to care.

  The conversation veered to my quitting. Chaddha was on his fourth patiala and had managed to be uncharacteristically quiet till now. He asked, ‘Sir, why did you quit sir? Why did you quit?’

  ‘Do you really want me to repeat all that I’ve already told you?’ I said.

  ‘No sir, why don’t you do something creative this time—tell us a new reason.’ Chaddha’s smirk was intended to hurt.

  I thought a bit, ‘All right, here it is.’ I lit a cigarette for added effect, ‘You know how much I love The Beatles. I’m nuts about them. I was eleven when I heard Help! I still remember listening to it on my cassette player. I felt as if I had known them all my life. Even now, every time I hear them I feel a sense of pride, as if I have achieved something through them. I don’t exactly know where that pride comes from—maybe it’s because I grew up with them and I have convinced myself that they’re my elder brothers. You know there was a Beatles album for every phase of my life: Help! was my favourite in middle school, it was like a puberty album; Rubber Soul was high school, cigarettes and light moustaches; Revolver and Sgt Pepper’s was college and cannabis and White Album was for the rest of our miserable lives. They were a miracle man, no matter what you’re feeling, you’ll find a song that understands it.’

  ‘Abe, where the hell is this going?’ Chaddha asked. Sampu was smiling, his eyes shut.

  ‘I’m getting to it man. Where was I? Yes, Paul, George, John and Ringo are the brothers I never had and I feel like I’m the black sheep of this wonderfully talented family. Chaddha, this is my chance! I must do something to save face, to retain some semblance of dignity when I meet Lennon and Harrison in heaven. I don’t want to be the barber of Penny Lane, I don’t want to be the driver of that black cab you can see on the cover of Abbey Road, and I don’t want to be Desmond Jones. I need to do something that’ll make my brothers proud of me or else all the years of daydreaming, lying on bed with a Beatles CD on my chest would go to waste. I can’t let that happen.’

  ‘That makes some sense,’ Sampu said.

  ‘That’s bullshit! That’s your usual modus operandi,’ Chaddha said, ‘I’m asking you a simple question and you’re giving me pseudo crap! Bloody Albert Camus ki najayaz aulaad, motherfucker!’ He staggered wildly in an attempt to come close to where I was sitting. Sampu stood up, I thought he was going to save me from Chaddha’s wrath. I was wrong. He was more concerned about the two beer bottles lying on the floor. He carefully picked them up and placed them in a corner close to the balcony, away from Chaddha’s drunken orbit.

  Bumbum came in with masala peanuts and egg bhurji. Chaddha stopped, looked closely at the plate and told Bumbum to take back the “bloody ghaas-phoos”. Sampu and I protested. Poor Bumbum, he stood there unsure of what to do next. I put my foot down and the plate stayed.

  ‘Bhandari Sir, I think you have made a mistake,’ Chaddha had calmed down a bit and had regained the thread he lost earlier; he was pacing the room. It seemed as if he was talking to himself.

  When I didn’t reply, Sampu jumped in, ‘Why Chaddha, why do you think he has made a mistake?’

  ‘People quit to make more money—to build something that’ll give them more money, status, that’ll let them have a lifestyle they otherwise can’t aff ... aff ... aff ...’

  ‘... ford,’ Sampu suggested.

  ‘Yes, afford,’ said Chaddha, ‘but what have you done? You have fucked yourself. Can you stop being so bloody idealistic? Can you tell me honestly, once and for all, what was so wrong with your job?’

  ‘Yes, I agree … tell us, tell us …’ added Sampu.

  They looked at me with renewed interest—as if they were peering through the window to look at a mad man strapped to an electric chair with the execute button in his wildly shaking hands.

  This was irritating. I decided to be equally annoying. I declared, ‘I want to become someone I want to become, not what others want me to become.’

  ‘And what do others want you to become?’ asked Chaddha. He was kneeling against my Philips 40-inch plasma television. I had just finished paying the EMIs for that.

  ‘You know others expect me to be the regular chap who goes to office, marries, has kids, becomes old, dies—maybe in the process he becomes a respected member of society.’

  ‘And what is so fucking wrong with being the regular guy you snobbish, pseudo-intellectual bastard!’ Chaddha boomed.

  ‘Chaddha, Chaddha, control your Punjabi refugee angst yaar,’ Sampu chuckled.

  ‘Fuck you Pandey! Fuck you and your puny Brahmin arse. You Brahmin fuckers, you philosophise, intellectualise but you won’t raise a finger,’ Chaddha called him Pandey because Sampu didn’t like being called by his surname.

  ‘Aha! You dare point your finger at me, you sonuvabitch!’ Sampu glared at Chaddha, ‘I won’t raise a finger to do nothing because that’s what I want to do. Punjabis like you always want something, you want anything as long as it’s something. You want to make it big without even knowing what that means, you always want something more, something else, something better, more money, bigger boobs, bigger car, better whisky, you Punjabi bastards! And when that’s all done, then you’re old and wrinkled but no wiser; you don’t know how to deal with what’s happening around you—you’ve become outdated, insignificant and miserable. So what do old Punjabi uncles do—they find religion, they organise satsangs! That’s what you too will end up doing! I don’t do anything because I know how futile it is. I live for the day you fucking idiot!’ Sampu had suddenly raised himself from the slumped arc he had formed from the beginning of the ‘session’—his back was erect, his body taut.

  ‘Bullshit! Pandey you always sound like you’ve just read The Fountainhead,’ said Chaddha. He poured himself another drink, ‘OK, alright, I suffer from Punjabi angst, now can we get back to his quitting,’ he turned to me, ‘Tell us Bhandari, what’s so fucking wrong with being the regular guy?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s just that I want to become Mukund Bhandari—and I want to find out how,’ I admit I wasn’t making too much sense but maybe this is the most coherent I ever got about what made me quit.

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Chaddha asked.

  ‘I mean all my life I have been the son of such and such, a student in this college, an employee in some company; you know Mukund Bhandari who works in Gibbons Moore, drives a Wagon R and lives in Srijan Vihar.’

  ‘Yeah, so what’s so wrong with that?’ asked Chaddha.

  ‘Chaddha, I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m just saying I want to do something only I can do. That will be my contribution to the world.’

  ‘Contribution! Fuck man! That sounds so fucking pseudo, flower power-ish, so fucking obsolete!’ declared Chaddha, he turned to Sampu, ‘Pandey, it’s all because of your fucked-up influence. Look what you’ve done to this innocent kid.’

  ‘What the fuck! Let me tell you, you Punjabi arse, I don’t subscribe to his views. If you ask me, he’s digging himself a hole,’ said Sampu.

  I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe it—Sampu the two-timing bastard!

  ‘Maybe I have dug myself a hole. So what?’ I said, ‘I want to feel the exhilaration I felt when I first read The Fountainhead. I want to feel the buoyancy of that summer day when I first put Forever Changes in my CD player, I want to be John Montague Talbot, like him I want to kill all those who killed the
people I loved—I want to feel again. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘We feel. I feel,’ Sampu said.

  ‘Ok, let me just explain this one last time,’ I said.

  ‘Noooooooo … ,’ Chaddha shrieked.

  I ignored him and said, ‘I want to dig a hole and put a sign on it that says: THIS FUCKING HOLE WAS DUG BY MUKUND BHANDARI! I don’t care if anyone gives a shit about what I did—it’s what I think that matters to me. I’m sick and tired of being just another rat in the fucking race. I’m not even good at running the race. It takes guts to do what I did. My mother is a university teacher; my father hasn’t given me any money since I was 17. If I were rich and I was doing this, you could still have made fun of me but I’m not. So fuck you, fuck your startup dreams, fuck your BMWs and fuck your aspirations to become a VP at a tender fucking age—I, hereby, declare myself free of all that corny, nauseating shit!’

  Chaddha was quiet. He seemed hurt. Sampu sighed. He got up and walked out of the room. I lit a cigarette and looked out of the window.

  Sampu came back, Chaddha’s car keys were dangling on his thumb, ‘Let’s go to the mall,’ he said.

  I saw a caramel McFlurry, Chaddha saw a strawberry cheesecake, Sampu saw a mutton burger. We filed out of the house in a neat, silent, somber queue. Everything was forgiven. We were stoners, nothing could come between us and junk food.

  It was 9 pm when we reached the mall. It was less crowded but shops were still open. We took the escalator to the food court. Chaddha chomped on his cake, I had my McFlurry and Sampu went looking for his burger. I was feeling terrific. A little later, Sampu asked me if I had something to drink. I said no. He went away again and came back with a bottle of Jameson’s in a brown paper bag. ‘My treat,’ he said. We drank and walked around. I was grinning. Chaddha was stumbling and Sampu, like a good father, was handing us the bottle from time to time.

  We passed an Apple store. Sampu suggested that I should try a MacBook since I was going to write a book and a Mac can’t be beaten when you’re writing or doing anything at all—a Mac can help you poop better if given a chance. My head was buzzing, my feet were heavy—I walked into the store. I stood there for what seemed like a hundred minutes. A salesman came forth. He called me ‘sir’. I felt good. He spoke eloquently about how a Mac is the best machine ever made.

  ‘I think you should go for it,’ Sampu said from a distance. He was digging into his burger.

  ‘You think so?’ I said.

  ‘I think you should,’ said Chaddha.

  I thought about it. I thought about all the things I had never wanted and I had, I thought about all the things I wanted but could not have, I thought about this and that.

  I bought it. Credit cards are amazing. Carrying that white case in my clammy hands I felt a sense of exhilaration that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt like I was floating.

  We watched the new Transformers movie. It was late at night when we left the theatre. Chaddha hit the bottle as soon as we reached the car.

  ‘I’m buzzed man, I’m buzzed,’ he kept repeating from the back. Sampu drove out of the mall. We had just hit the highway when Sampu got a call. It was Shweta. He stopped the car and tossed the car keys at me but before I could move, Chaddha had ejected himself from the back and had jumped into the driver’s seat. ‘Sir Chaddha will drive’ he said.

  ‘No Chaddha, you are drunk,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, yes I am. I will drive.’

  ‘Chaddha, you’re not fit to drive,’ I said.

  ‘Bhandari, this is not going to work. Sir Chaddha is sitting in the driver’s seat. Sir Chaddha shall drive.’

  I insisted but Chaddha was adamant. ‘This,’ he told me, ‘is this city’s favourite pastime.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Arre, this, this,’ he swayed a bit, pointed at the bottle and then at the steering.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Drunk driving, you idiot!’ he smiled and said, ‘now give me the keys.’

  My Pinky Baabu

  Chaddha, please be careful man.’ I pleaded.

  ‘Of course, I’ll be careful. This, my friend, is a pivotal moment …’

  It took him two tries to insert the key in the ignition.

  ‘… a pivotal moment in the notorious history of drunk driving.’

  The car jumped to a start.

  ‘By the way, can you see my legs?’ Chaddha asked. I didn’t reply.

  ‘Don’t bother. I found them.’

  Chaddha clutched at the steering and shook his head often to keep himself from nodding off. To my relief, he drove at a sedate 40 km/h. He insisted on keeping the cabin lights on. The car was a well-lit grave.

  Sampu was on the phone sprawled on the backseat. We could hear him clearly despite his attempts at muffling his entreaties, ‘I love you my pucchu. I’m so very, very, very sorry my pucchu,’ and ‘this will never ever happen again my Pinky Baabu.’

  It was hard to imagine Shweta and ‘pucchu’ and ‘Pinky Baabu’ together in a room. This was entertainment. A deep insight into how a married man grovels.

  ‘Do you remember our honeymoon my Pinky,’ Sampu whispered. A second later he was giggling.

  Chaddha and I looked at each other. We grinned. Sampu didn’t mind.

  We were about to reach home when some idiots in an SUV decided to kill us because Chaddha didn’t let them pass. It was not his fault really—Chaddha was driving on the left-most lane but they wanted him to get off the road. They lost patience in about 10 seconds. They screamed at us to stop. Chaddha panicked, pushed the accelerator and tried to find the gearshift. It was a valiant attempt at escape. We reached a top speed of 90 (the max his Santro could do without disintegrating). They followed us, all the while honking, flashing lights and cussing loudly.

  ‘Jai Mata Di, Jai Mata Di,’ Chaddha chanted. A drunk in danger is a true devotee.

  I took the cue from him, ‘Vakra-Tunndda Maha-Kaaya Surya-Kotti Samaprabha,’ I chanted.

  ‘That’s too long,’ Chaddha interrupted, ‘do Jai Mata Di, Jai Mata Di. It’s quick and she listens.’

  ‘Ok,’ I said and I recited his mantra. ‘Stop, you motherfuckers’. They were chanting loudly like the potbellied pundits of Kalighat. We were bleating like the impoverished pujaris of a small temple in Kalahandi. On whom will God’s grace fall?

  They overtook us and then stopped their car in the middle of the road. Chaddha applied the brakes. We waited in the car.

  ‘Get out you motherfuckers,’ one of them shouted. We got out. Sampu was the last one out, he kept talking to Shweta till Chaddha and I had stepped out. We were lined up against the side of the Santro. They were four—three short, fat ones and one tall one with a beard. They reeked of perfume. The chap with the beard took out a gun and pointed it at us.

  ‘You want to die, eh? You want to die?’ he said.

  ‘No, no, sorry sir ji, my friend here is getting diarrhoea and we wanted to reach home fast,’ Chaddha said pointing to me. I nodded slowly.

  The man laughed. ‘So that’s why you were driving so slow, so that he could shit in his pants?’

  ‘Sorry sir ji,’ I said.

  ‘Here, let me help you with your shit,’ he said and he placed the gun’s nozzle on my stomach. I was trembling.

  ‘Don’t sir ji, please. We are very sorry, very, very sorry,’ said Sampu.

  He ignored him and began to count, this was it, I closed my eyes ‘One, two, three, four—BANG BANG’—I peed in my pants. He and his friends were laughing.

  They slapped us a few times, ‘That should teach you a lesson,’ the tall one said. He wouldn’t have been a day more than 19. Then they got into their Audi and left.

  We huddled back into our car and got back home in a few minutes. We sat in the car for a while. We had just escaped death or a definite maiming. Chaddha and I lit cigarettes. We would have savoured this new lease of life a bit more had we not heard the muffled sound of Sampu’s apology, ‘I feel I’ll lose you baby. I feel when the
baby comes you’ll forget about your original baby, my pucchu, my Pinky Baabu.’

  He was still at it—he must have put Shweta on hold when they stopped us, ‘Hold on my Pinky Baabu, let me get maimed and then we’ll talk. It’ll only take a minute,’ he must’ve said.

  Chaddha noticed my pants were wet when we reached home. He didn’t say anything. We changed and then sat in my room. We were too shocked. Sampu walked in after 10 minutes, ‘I got to go. I’ll see you chaps soon,’ He put the Jameson bottle on the table, picked up his bag and left.

  The bottle still had a few swigs left. We drank and lit a joint.

  ‘Should we go to the police?’ I asked Chaddha.

  ‘They’ll laugh at us. And what if these people find out and come after us?’

  ‘Ok, let’s forget about it.’

  ‘I would have shat in my pants if I would have been you.’

  ‘Stop it Chaddha. Don’t try to make me feel better.’

  ‘Ok,’ he said.

  After a while he looked up and said, ‘Bhandari, can I tell you something?’

  I nodded.

  ‘My father lost everything when I was seven. Once we were rich but I’ve seen what it’s like to have everything and then nothing. I know my single-minded pursuit of money sounds perverse to the arty-farty public like you but to me it is the only thing that makes sense. This is what I want to do.’

  I nodded ‘You’re right Chaddha. I shouldn’t have said what I said, I’m sorry.’

  Chaddha nodded. I don’t know if he even heard my apology. He said he was sleepy. He went back to his room.

  I went to the balcony to get some fresh air. I could see brightly lit windows of offices across the road, people were working night shifts. I wished I could see what they looked like, what they were doing, but it was too far away. On my right was the neighbouring society where Bumbum’s girlfriend lived—light still streamed out of some houses. I saw someone watching TV—maybe they were watching football or maybe they weren’t able to sleep like me. What do I know about anything or anyone? Who am I to judge?