Night walk to the 'dhaba'

This piece is addressed as if the day after I had taken that memorable trip to the dhaba. The date was 12th January and please read it as if it is 13th january 2006!

Hostel life is fun,
yesterday me and my bunch of jumpstart friends realised an interestingly new dimension to that fun. We in our hostels at this national school have rules, rules as regards to going out and coming into the hostel so that we can get boxed up in that piece of infrastructure which our university so proudly calls 'hostel'. Boys will be boys though...and as you all so disgustingly know, our philosophy screams out with special emphasis that rules are meant just so that they could be broken. In fact not just broken but smashed, disintegrated and thrown into one of those pathetic gutters that are freely available in Mumbai. Our so called rules are mentioned in a students manual that got lost inside 24hours of being recieved in our first semester. I somehow faintly recall reading that nobody should go out of the hostel premises after 9:30 PM. Can you belive I actually read the damn manual...Well neither can I...but then our warden Nalin sir has explained the rules so many times to us... You see, I kind of liked the nice soft spoken economics professor of ours so maybe I scrolled through the pages someday. Now, coming back to what we did with the rules is that we decided to suspend the rules a little(in fact BREAK IT and smash it and throw it and all) and go out for a special tryst with with our own Rules (No holds barred, dance your heart out rules).

It was 12:30 when the creatures of the night...I mean the dead of the night(me , pradyumn, JD, aravind, manu, john, arjun, and under-18) decided to go for the walk. G9, as we call our group, was greeted by a clear sky as the great bear and the orion gleefully beamed down at us. The constellations were discussed at some random length by me and john as we walked in groups of two's and threes. John and I also expanded on a few other variety of topics. I was reminded of srikant very much because we two normally got around discussing philosophies and stuff (John is kind of similar to sriku). Pradyumn and arjun had to pick up some cash at the ATM which fell on our route to the dhaba in a petrol pump. Being the good samaritans that we are, me and john decided to wait for them while others strolled away into the distance. Chattering merrily continued with all outlooks on life coming under scrutiny.

On the way comes a small room like structure where a warm and inviting campfire lazily burnt. Two men were warming themselves up, one was the man who stayed there and another was a stranger who had stopped on the way probably unable to resist the temptation of warming his numb hands before moving on. We threw occasional fleeting glances at them, sometimes at the fire as we continued the enriching exchange of words. Finally the stranger dressed in brownish leather jacket and dark jeans started the bike. A few stones were strewn on the roadside and as he flexed and fumbled with his aggressive start on the bike he jumped over them creating the image of a cartoonish biker boyz character. I dont remember very well but maybe me and john had a passing chuckle as we looked on at his loafer-like bike antics. Then maybe he somehow felt our sarcasm kissed smiles because he finally looked at us... Walking up to us making his mean face clear and available for the two of us he asked us what we were doing there and with a wry smile I said we were waiting for friends who have gone to the ATM to get cash for the pending dinner at the dhaba. His conversation, which seemed more like interrogation for me continued in right earnest, he further stretched his attitude asking us about our subsequent plans. I maintained my sweet charming smile as I answered, 'hostel'. His ugly and villanous face softened up a little although the unfathomable stench of cheap liqour grasped us in a perpetually nauseating wave. He said he thought we called him. Negative I answered with the smile quite intact. Now he bottled up his long hair using both his hands and finally gave us that natural inherently sick smile of his. With one final biking jumpstart he had dissappeared into the darkness. That was that he left we smiled.

Fear descended gradually as far as I am concerned but John says he was more on guard rather than anything else. We concluded very substantively taking into account all the actual activities that late night comprises - "this guy whoever he was was a drug dealer". He probably thought we wanted drugs and that was why he walked upto us. Anyway I console myself thinking he could not have done anything to us since it was always an uneven battle of two on one with John alone I am sure equal to two of his kind. Anyway the prospect of him having weapons though did scare me off and on this one john was equivocal. Just for the record, 'I WAS SCARED'. Now when I look back though, it is but ofcourse just another experience to look back on life and to feel the shudders. We trudged on from there without waiting for the ATM duo to get back (We had had enough of random drug dealers in the middle of the night you see) and reached SAHEB da - dhaba. Ordered butter chicken for the five non-vegs and the veg people had some arbitary food (I know paneer and some other mixed stuff I guess) roti and onions were the most wanted cusines as we haughtily feasted on 50 rotis!!(6 each+ 2 I dont know who). Then came the most uninteresting part of these trips, 'paying the bill', we went dutch.

Finally it was time for our stroll back into our law school life, the walk back was good and in a singular group. We reached the hostel at around 2:30 and with the slightest of chatter went off to sleep hoping against all hope, considering how lazy we usually are, that we would be able to catch the bus next morning (I managed to crack it anyway). Next morning in class Mahesh sir told us about how late night while we came back he heard our booming voices. I can only wonder what he was doing, must have been on the phone talking to his fiancee. Neways thats how things have been till I sat down to write to you people.