Hello all,
Well, its been more than 7 months since my last and first post!! Know what, the writer in me is VERY ANGRY!! His first outburst came in the form of an account of my recent disastrous Agra tour.. During the trip, things went so grossly wrong that 'disaster' would be an understatement.. Well, enough of preface, on to the account rightaway!!
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INCREDIBLE AGRA: THE DREAM TOUR TURNED SOUR!!
Date: 21st Jan 2006
Time: 9:50 pm
Venue: Moti Bagh Chai bhandar, Delhi
Take 1, Action!! “Bhaiyya, five tea” roared Arun Kumar a.k.a (also known as) Charles.C.Raj (the initial is anyone’s guess!!) alias Charlie, in his much improved Hindi dialect! Wow, how much Hindi he’s picked up in two years since coming to FMS?!! The order was for Premjit alias baba, Jai alias Jai Bhagwan, Poddar alias Michael Poddar, Charles and Ganes Kesari, oops that’s me.!! We had come on our usual nocturnal jaunt to our own Tea stall to wash down the as-always-yummy-and-delectable mess dinner! The ERP class that evening had also been very heavy as usual, with lots of case analysis, live discussions, impromptu presentations and what not…
With Final Placements round the corner, the discussion obviously was centered on General Knowledge wherein the group shared its ‘knowledge’ on the ‘general’ happenings with 'students' in the Satya Niketan area and about ‘technological advances’ like the fast adoption of Bluetooth in ‘business areas’ around the Delhi malls and places like Priya complex, for whatever reason ;) !! Then, we had a quick update on the Current Affairs front, what with a couple of couples from the Pioneers ‘breaking all norms’ of late, true to the spirit of MBA MS!!
Ping-ping…. Tring-tring… all mobiles went off like the Russian synchronized swimming team!! There was a familiar glance in the faces of the gang.. Premjit went off ‘Oh, saala it has to be Dujari again.. who else in this world can do such a feat, consistently?’ For the uninitiated, it was Anand Dujari, the sole connecting link amongst the MS batch, who religiously does a thankless job of forwarding sms to the whole batch, unmindful of whatever time of the day it is.. Jai, the head boy of ‘Exilir’ read out the message “Dear second years, the FDA and Insurance class scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled.. Thanks for your attention.. - Anand Dujari”. “Yipeeee!!” shrieked the gang, finally a free Sunday.. All the brains started working at a fast pace to fill in the schedule..
“Kahin chalte yaar” started Premjit, yet again.. I added “I’m game, anywhere. Why don’t we go to Jaipur. That’s been on the cards for quite some time”. Poddar added, “Sure, why not? Suckers lets freeze it this time”. Jai summed it up “Bhai log chalo, we’ll leave today by car and we can come back in a day.. pakka”. With a plan made, the gang heaved a sigh of relief.. Great, so we were going places.. literally!! We ordered another round of chai to have one last glance at the last lot of 'locals' who were closing business for the night!!
10:30 pm - Back to the hostel
We went shouting up the stairs.. “Jaipur, anyone… Jaipur, anyone… Trip tonight…” There was a reply from the second floor.. “Agra, Agra.. Trip tonight, anybody coming” that was our Baabe alias Maneesh Pherwani selling out tickets for an Agra trip.. “Now, where the hell did this plan come from” we wondered.. To thrash out the issue, we arranged a GD in our second floor common ‘meeting room’, which also happens to be the room used for staying by Saroop alias Swaroop!! Pherwani put forward the structure of the discussion and Tiwari moderated it, noise was provided by all assembled.. Final outcome: Agra plan finalized for the day, or rather night.. Nine warriors volunteered to enlist for the critical mission!! Our initial gang of five were part of the volunteers.. The MAMA gang minus Aditya came forward.. It was said that Adi had some ‘pressing’ issue to attend to J.. So, the warriors conveyed their best wishes for his mission and moved on ;) Prem K Nath alias Kamnath made the final cut. The team reassembled in the ‘meeting room’ for the mission debriefing by the acting local guide for the day, Saroop (a keen investor in stock markets, and a chemical engineer from Agra University!). The plan was clearly chalked out and the roles assigned – 2 cars, 4 drivers and 5 entertainers (whose job was to basically entertain the driver and tickle him if he falls asleep in the highway!)..
12:20 am - Preps on in the Hostel
With all planned out, the preparations were underway.. Jai burnt a CD from his exhaustive movie-cum-audio library, which is probably bigger than all entertainment studios put together (thanks to the hostel wifi and thanks to Uncle!).. I ran to my room and picked up a ‘Shahrukh Hits’ CD and also tucked in a Tamil masti songs CD!! People started packing their rucksacks with eatables, camera, clothes etc.. All the while Udit alias Uncle was roaming around peeping into all rooms and getting excited about the trip.. You’re right, ofcourse he hadn’t volunteered.. However, the warriors were rightly proud of this ‘ideal married man’.. Here was a man who wouldn’t let small worldly pleasures or any other thing come in between him and his first, second and third love - ‘Futures & Options, Commodity trading and Oil Industry’, in the same order.. (sorry, Divya)!!
2:50 am – The journey begins..
Having bathed (jus’ joking!) and freshened up, the warriors were ready to get into battle-mode.. The tanks, a Swift and Lancer commandeered from Premjit and Tiwari were ready to roll.. “Jai Bajrang Bali… Jai Mata Di…” and the battle begins… I logged into Premjit’s Swift and acted as the entertainer for the first part of the journey.. Premjit turned on his high-end Sony stereo and mischievously smiled.. The stereo bellowed ‘G*** mein Dhanda dei…’ which was the latest popular number.. and it marked the beginning of the journey much to the joy of the passengers.. Alas, none of the warriors knew that it was symbolic of their fate in the much touted trip!!
The party made a lot of halts in Dhabhas all along the way.. To get the Retail Marketing experience, we decided to check into the Reliance Petro outlet and A1 café.. Tiwari, a photography enthusiast (“Oh, thank God, purpose served” heaved everyone!) went on a rampage with his own version of Kournikova’s latest Cannon camera, clicking snaps left and right and backside, capturing ‘all’ activities of the people in the process (for whatever reason, now that’s besides the point)!!
7:50 am - Agra
Battle-ground reached.. The warriors set their foot in Agra and the first halt was at Sikandra, the tomb of Mughal Emperor Akbar in all its majestic glory.. A quick tour and couple of snaps later we decided to move on to ‘more exciting’ destinations, unaware of what kind of exciting things were in store for us!!
9:40 am - Fatehpur Sikri
The next halt was at Fatehpur Sikri, once the capital of Akbar and the place where he had built palaces for his three queens, Hindu, Muslim and Christian, a symbol of religious harmony.. It also had the famed Buland Darwaza.. Once out of the cars, we were swarmed by kids who were much younger than 14 years.. They were doling out undeniably attractive propositions.. “Bade Bhai, (yes, they addressed Pheru!) aapki gaadi ko Rani Mukherji banaa doonga, only fifty rupees” or “Bade Bhai, whole place explain, only twenty rupees, believe me very cheap”.. They were offering a ‘bouquet of services’ from washing cars, to acting as guides, to selling memorabilia.. More than the deals, we were over-awed by the English accent used by the kids and the level of confidence and fluency with which they were using the language.. This reinforced the fact that experience is the best teacher, and they probably knew nuances that even a Marketing MBA cannot teach.. This made me wonder how many future Entrepreneurs were in making in that particular place..
11:55 am – Lunch time
On our way back to Agra, we decided to have our lunch at a wayside Dhaba which turned out to be the first of a string of faulty ‘managerial’ decisions that day.. We breached the first Don’t of eating in a Dhaba, by ordering without checking the prices.. To add to that, people went about ordering all kinds of fancy sabjis .. Poddar couldn’t do without a ‘Gobi Manchurian’, which the Dhaba cooks would have only overheard being discussed by tourists passing by!! We were offered strange looking stuff and had difficulty matching the names to the dishes, and we finally gave up.. The server identified Manchurian as a dish that had strange looking lumps soaked in thick muddy water, which strongly resembled something else!! Nevertheless we were famished, so people finished all the stuff double fast.. But, the real problem was with digesting the things eaten after we came to know about the bill.. To sum it up, WE WERE LOOTED.!!
You don’t get much out of arguing with a Dhabawala in some Godforsaken place, after eating his food, except for some unexpected gift which Pheru was entitled to.. Our stars were all stacked up against us so much that one-odd-tribal-charming-one-odd-tamed-monkey-tied-by-one-odd-rope managed to nearly bite Baabe alias Pheru!! We decided enough was enough and planned to carry on to savour the Taj.. Afterall wasn’t that one of the major attractions of our trip?
01:50 pm – Entry into the Taj
Off we drove towards Taj Mahal, where the climax of the day was carefully planned for us!! We parked the cars outside the park and walked through the park enjoying the Minar’s beauty, as we were approaching the greatest symbol of man’s love on Earth. Due to heightened security, we were forced to part with our mobiles at the locker.. We dutifully handed the 7 mobiles (ok, 2 were left in the car.. in hindsight it would have been safer to leave all 9 in the car!!) to the guard. Even though I was checking out Shah Jahan’s monument for the third time in two years, the magnificence of Taj overwhelmed me.. We clicked as many snaps as we could in front of the masterpiece..
Inside the Taj, we moved on to the basement where people generally leave their shoes.. We were relaxing there and taking snaps.. Kamnath grew tired and made himself a seat on the railing, just like some other people.. Now knowing about our unfavourable Stars position, a shoe-stand-wala rushed in from nowhere and started barking at Kamnath asking him to get up at once or else… Our Andhra Bull was infuriated at the treatment meted out to him in the lap of the Taj, so in Chiranjeevi style he retorted and it grew into a heated argument!! Now, the other guy started pushing Kamnath around.. Man, this was it.. The eight of us jumped into the fray.. “How the hell can you touch our guy?” we bellowed.. Pheru dropped a couple of interesting logics.. “Tu government hai to mai fauji hoon!!” Others pitched in with a couple of conveniently modified sayings.. The commotion was great and we attracted everyone’s attention.. Now, the public was getting some unpaid fun to savour.. and they lapped it up.. However, the couple Shahjahan and Mumtaz must have turned in their grave!! Finally, a policeman jumped into the scene and settled the dispute and the crowd departed with disappointment!! Proud at having set right a wrong attitude, we moved on!!
03:30 pm – Exit from the Taj
We were forced to come out of the Taj in less than a couple of hours as we were left with less time and no one wanted to miss the Agra Fort lest the tour be incomplete.. But apparently the tour was destined to ‘be finished off’ in better ways!! By now, the Taj was flooded with people and a looong queue had formed at the locker counter.. Saroop got onto the line and the rest of us sat on the railings to ‘critically observe’ the foreigners in a bid to appreciate other realistic forms of beauty!!
We were lost in our duties when suddenly Premjit rushed to us breathlessly “Someone has taken my mobile and has ran away from the counter.. We must catch him”.. It was a sudden jolt from the blue.. His latest Sony mobile was a star attraction in the campus and was worth more than 15k.. “Shit, it would be too much too lose it” we thought and immediately the Hero in us popped out instantly.. Charles who had till now largely been a silent ‘observer’ sprung to action fastest and immediately scampered towards the guy.. Poddar, unmindful of his already injured leg (oh, he tragically injured it by pouring hot water.. yes unintentionally!) started second on his way.. When something of this sort has happened, how can I be far behind? I started running after Charles.. Premjit by now recollected his senses and started running as fast as he could after us, shouting “Chor, chor, pakdo, pakdo!!”.. By now everyone, absolutely everyone around Taj started looking at us.. My pride suddenly grew King size and I felt like I was running the last lap of the Olympic Marathon!! I fastened my pace and ran as fast as I could behind Arun “Oye bastard.. Here I come, in search of glory”!!
Now a couple of guys in their 20s, in a bid to help us get the culprit closed in on Arun and caught him, mistaking him to be the thief!! Arun continued in his Hindi “No Bhaiyya, the thief is running ahead in a Brown jacket”.. Enlightened by his ‘fluent’ Hindi, the guys gave up chasing the culprit, leaving all the glory to just the few of us!! By now the ‘culprit’ was within visible distance.. to everyone’s surprise he got into a minibus which was about to start.. Off went Arun, Jai and Poddar into the rear exit of the bus after him.. Now, I thought fast “What if the guy got out off the front exit.. These guys would all lose time catching him.. Wow!! Great idea.. So I decided to surprise the culprit by directly rushing to the front exit.. Obviously flattered by my brilliant plan I rushed to the front… surprise surprise, I couldn’t find one!! Alas, it being a minibus, it had only one rear exit!! “SHUCKS” Disappointment writ large on my face at having my plan go down the drain, I rushed back to the only exit in the bus and jumped in! By now Premjit was at the guy’s collar and using unparliamentary words that involved motherly and sisterly relations!! From the rear end I had a glimpse of the guy’s face.. oh boy, was I shocked??!! The guy was bleeding from his nose to teeth.. There was blood smeared all over his face.. And there was Arun, still punching him from side to side and tirelessly beating him blue.. Bravely, he grabbed his head and banged it on the window, which reminded me of Rajinikant in one of his action movies!! An old man sitting at the rear end of the bus told me “This guy has already been beaten enough, please don’t join them in whacking him”.. Being a person who respects public sentiment, I decided not to intervene!!
By now, the guy was being pulled out of the bus and all our brave warriors were queued up outside the bus beside him.. Being a part of the chase, I proudly took a place beside the culprit.. The trophy was mine too!! A HUGE crowd had gathered all over the place, around us and it felt like we had won India a Gold medal in the Olympics and were about to be raised on to the podium!! The police promptly joined the party and I had a feeling that they had come to felicitate us with the ‘Red & White Bravery Award’ for 2006 for displaying bravery in public life!! We stood fast with the culprit. By now, some members of the crowd started moving towards the culprit to exhibit some of their macho on the caged tiger.. Immediately the policemen realized the seriousness of the situation and started frisking the guy to the nearby police booth.. behind him, we went.. and ofcourse the crowd followed..
Now, suddenly the guy started waving the mobile and claimed that it had pictures of him taken in the Agra Fort. He kept claiming that it was his own. Now, for a moment, I got suspicious. “How the hell is this guy so confident?” I thought to myself “Hell, whatever, we shouldn’t check the mobile before reaching the police booth.. verifying it here might land us in trouble”. Just then one brave soul in our group volunteered, “Ok, show us the picture. Lets see”! There I was waiting with bated breath looking at the mobile, as if waiting for the third umpire’s decision!! “Will he or Won’t he?”
The Hunters get hunted!!
He finally opened the mobile and showed it to the crowd – yes, it indeed had his picture!! “Shucks, We’re screwed” I told myself. Now Premjit whispered to us “I think there has been a small mistake”.. We shuddered and thought “A mistake? A small one? Oh, now the crowd will show us how small it was!” It was then that I noticed that I was wearing the FMS sweat shirt that day!! “Oh my God, of all days why today??!!” In our group, five of us were with a similar sweatshirt. Now, Premjit tried maintaining his aggressive posture by shouting to the guy “Then, why did you run when we chased you?” But clearly his voice was getting drowned and it was obvious that we won’t be able to hold the fort any longer.. Our fort walls had been breached and we were just waiting for the enemy troops to rush in for the kill! Slowly the ‘warriors’ tried slipping away from the scene one by one!!
But sadly enough, we had attracted too much of unnecessary attention, much to our detriment.. Now, we were firmly into this quicksand and it was slowly eating us away!! By now, Saroop was back from the locker and he started distributing the mobiles unaware of the quagmire we were into.. I was told that he had Premjit’s mobile too!! This confirmed things and made me understand what had happened then.. Fortunately, we all maintained that the mobile was still lost..
Just then, some guy cried out of public interest “Inko pakdo, aur inko maro”.. ZAP.. out of nowhere a whole army of people charged upon us!! Now, more people started taking initiative and they started identifying the ‘warriors’ involved.. One guy from behind me shouted “yeh bhi tha, isko bhi maro” and pushed me in.. Quickly enough, Saroop who was neither a part of the chase nor the mugging drama was identified and pushed in too, thanks to his sweatshirt! I consciously steered away from the crowd and moved onto the pavement.. Fortunately I wasn’t pushed in again.. By now, people were focusing on Maneesh, Saroop, Poddar, Jai and Arun. Of these people, Arun who was the prime target safely stood behind the policeman and seeked protection. Maneesh was frantically wrestling with a couple of guys in the crowd.. Then, I turned to look at Jai.. One very heavy blow landed on him from behind.. Someone who had obviously gotten enough from his wife was showing all his ‘bravery’ on our ‘Exilir’ head.. Jai, for a moment thought that one of his ears had ceased functioning!! Out of great concern he did “Ear testing 1,2,3 on the spot!!” Just then, another brave hen-pecked soul gave him another extra-strong blow.. In the impact, he lost balance inspite of all his rock-climbing-and-balancing-experience (This made it amply clear that he had spent more time ogling at foreigners in the mountaineering institute ;) !!) and his new glasses slipped... he just managed to grab it..
Now, it was Poddar’s turn.. One guy was charging at him from behind and there were about ten to twenty kids (yes, just like the same creative, fluent, young salesmen discussed earlier!).. Everyone has a first time, and these kids identified this was the right time to start kicking a person in their life, so they promptly joined in! They wasted no time in mercilessly kicking his posterior.. With great difficulty, they were just tall enough to reach his butts, so they landed a couple of shots there.. Poor Poddar turned back and got the shock of his life seeing him getting kicked by kids! Spontaneously, sexually offensive unparliamentary words found their way out!! But did it matter??! Now, he was getting too worried about how he would go down in history books for getting kicked by kids.. Just as if to pacify him, a policeman walked in and whacked him hard on the head with a lathi!! His moment of glory had arrived and now his soul would rest in peace!!
By now, the policemen had realized that it was for them to intervene and save the ‘brave warriors’ who were at the public’s mercy!! So, they started waving their lathis around, freely hitting anything it came in contact with.. Unfortunately, Saroop was being pushed around and he got hit by the lathi near his eye, which got swollen instantaneously.. He got the shock of his life by getting beaten for no fault of his! This made him crazy and he started bombarding the policemen and all those around him in hi-class Oxford-bred English, in his own flamboyant roundabout style!! We really couldn’t make out what he was upto!! The policemen tried controlling the mob and immediately decided to get us out of the place.. For once, I realized how important the Police force was in a democracy!!
They summoned a van and got the ‘supposed culprit’ and the ‘real culprits’ in!! With 5 of our guys in the police van, it was jam packed and it started moving out of the scene.. Hell, there I was still standing besides the mob on the platform and I got scared to death! I was all alone there, still in my sweatshirt.. (I decided it would be a bad idea to remove it in front of everyone lest they see and beat me for trying to hide!).. I tried to move towards the van but without success.. With a heavy heart I saw the van going away from the scene!! For the first time in my life I wished that the police pick me up too and take me to the police station!! But it was too late.. There I was, a sheep abandoned in front of a pack of hungry wolves.. For the first time in my life, I felt unsafe in an open public space!!
Quickly I decided to get the hell out of the place as fast as I could.. I didn’t know where the police station was and did not have the heart to ask anyone around.. So, I started walking in the direction in which the van had gone.. I had gone a few feet when I heard some commotion, and fear engulfed me!! “Oh shit, there they are coming after me!!” I turned back but didn’t see anyone!! So I continued on my way.. This kept happening again and again and after some time I realized I was getting too paranoid and consciously decided not to turn back lest I give some bugger in the public a signal!! After I had gone a few yards, there was noise again.. now it was approaching in my direction!! I had studied Doppler’s effect and no, this was not a hallucination!! I resigned to my fate and lay there waiting for them to come and take me!! Then reluctantly I turned back.. There, I saw Premjit being paraded by a gang of teenaged guys and about 50 kids!! Yes, there were about 50 kids swarming all over him..!! This immediately brought to my mind a scene from the movie ‘Black Hawk Down’ wherein an American pilot of one of the downed Choppers is paraded in the streets of Somalia with a horde of Somali locals and children swarming all over him!! Premjit’s face was white as snow, except for some light smears of the ‘culprit’s’ blood, which he had picked up while trying to hack the guy to death for committing the heinous crime of ‘buying a similar high-end mobile’!!
Now, Premjit also had his Sony Handycam around his neck.. I realized that the crowd was leading him in my direction.. Then, I made a quick decision to go and join him, come what may.. coz he was all alone and I had a feeling he could be threatened and robbed.. I felt that walking away from the scene would be a cowardly decision,.. So, I walked up towards him and much to the surprise of the crowd I joined him.. Then I learnt that the people were actually helping him go to the police station ‘safely’.. I heaved a sigh of relief.. The crowd following us slowly subsided as we reached the police station..
In front of the police station it was a happy reunion for the ‘warriors’.. Now I saw the ‘culprit’ again.. he had his face wiped clean and apparently he just had a broken nose.. To avenge his anger he punched Arun once in the police station and things were even now.. (ok, atleast theoretically!!) The policemen told us that it was an unfortunate coincidence and a clear misunderstanding, however they emphasized that we should have refrained from hitting the ‘supposed culprit’!!
4:50 pm – The drama ends
But now we were reluctant to walk back to the cars, lest we be lynched by the mob!! With great difficulty we pleaded the Police Constable to escort us back to the car.. He agreed and there we were, the six of us being shielded by a lathi-wielding constable till we reached our cars!! Tiwari and Premnath were the only two people in our gang who had moved out of this confusion early on.. they joined us at the car park and we left the place as soon as we could.. Me moved to another part of Agra, changed or atleast covered our sweat shirts and went in search of first aid for Saroop.. After getting him treated, the tempers cooled a bit and we checked into a bakery and ate to our hearts content.. We had too much coming at us in too short a time!! To commemorate our memorable journey, some guys bought the Agra-famous Pethas to carry back! By now, we started missing the safe environs of the South Campus.. So, we packed our bags and started on our journey back.. Fortunately, I don’t have anything to say about the return journey!! With Tiwari and Pheru firmly behind the wheel, we kept going.. When I was woken up, there we were in front of our own ‘China Bowl’! It was a very nice feeling!! We grabbed a quick dinner and rushed back to the hostel to catchup with some much needed sleep...
Inspite of all the goof ups and the mob-effect, I am sure this tour would find a place right up there in our memory!! Long live the Taj!! And long live our 'pleasant' memories!!
Well, its been more than 7 months since my last and first post!! Know what, the writer in me is VERY ANGRY!! His first outburst came in the form of an account of my recent disastrous Agra tour.. During the trip, things went so grossly wrong that 'disaster' would be an understatement.. Well, enough of preface, on to the account rightaway!!
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INCREDIBLE AGRA: THE DREAM TOUR TURNED SOUR!!
Date: 21st Jan 2006
Time: 9:50 pm
Venue: Moti Bagh Chai bhandar, Delhi
Take 1, Action!! “Bhaiyya, five tea” roared Arun Kumar a.k.a (also known as) Charles.C.Raj (the initial is anyone’s guess!!) alias Charlie, in his much improved Hindi dialect! Wow, how much Hindi he’s picked up in two years since coming to FMS?!! The order was for Premjit alias baba, Jai alias Jai Bhagwan, Poddar alias Michael Poddar, Charles and Ganes Kesari, oops that’s me.!! We had come on our usual nocturnal jaunt to our own Tea stall to wash down the as-always-yummy-and-delectable mess dinner! The ERP class that evening had also been very heavy as usual, with lots of case analysis, live discussions, impromptu presentations and what not…
With Final Placements round the corner, the discussion obviously was centered on General Knowledge wherein the group shared its ‘knowledge’ on the ‘general’ happenings with 'students' in the Satya Niketan area and about ‘technological advances’ like the fast adoption of Bluetooth in ‘business areas’ around the Delhi malls and places like Priya complex, for whatever reason ;) !! Then, we had a quick update on the Current Affairs front, what with a couple of couples from the Pioneers ‘breaking all norms’ of late, true to the spirit of MBA MS!!
Ping-ping…. Tring-tring… all mobiles went off like the Russian synchronized swimming team!! There was a familiar glance in the faces of the gang.. Premjit went off ‘Oh, saala it has to be Dujari again.. who else in this world can do such a feat, consistently?’ For the uninitiated, it was Anand Dujari, the sole connecting link amongst the MS batch, who religiously does a thankless job of forwarding sms to the whole batch, unmindful of whatever time of the day it is.. Jai, the head boy of ‘Exilir’ read out the message “Dear second years, the FDA and Insurance class scheduled for tomorrow has been cancelled.. Thanks for your attention.. - Anand Dujari”. “Yipeeee!!” shrieked the gang, finally a free Sunday.. All the brains started working at a fast pace to fill in the schedule..
“Kahin chalte yaar” started Premjit, yet again.. I added “I’m game, anywhere. Why don’t we go to Jaipur. That’s been on the cards for quite some time”. Poddar added, “Sure, why not? Suckers lets freeze it this time”. Jai summed it up “Bhai log chalo, we’ll leave today by car and we can come back in a day.. pakka”. With a plan made, the gang heaved a sigh of relief.. Great, so we were going places.. literally!! We ordered another round of chai to have one last glance at the last lot of 'locals' who were closing business for the night!!
10:30 pm - Back to the hostel
We went shouting up the stairs.. “Jaipur, anyone… Jaipur, anyone… Trip tonight…” There was a reply from the second floor.. “Agra, Agra.. Trip tonight, anybody coming” that was our Baabe alias Maneesh Pherwani selling out tickets for an Agra trip.. “Now, where the hell did this plan come from” we wondered.. To thrash out the issue, we arranged a GD in our second floor common ‘meeting room’, which also happens to be the room used for staying by Saroop alias Swaroop!! Pherwani put forward the structure of the discussion and Tiwari moderated it, noise was provided by all assembled.. Final outcome: Agra plan finalized for the day, or rather night.. Nine warriors volunteered to enlist for the critical mission!! Our initial gang of five were part of the volunteers.. The MAMA gang minus Aditya came forward.. It was said that Adi had some ‘pressing’ issue to attend to J.. So, the warriors conveyed their best wishes for his mission and moved on ;) Prem K Nath alias Kamnath made the final cut. The team reassembled in the ‘meeting room’ for the mission debriefing by the acting local guide for the day, Saroop (a keen investor in stock markets, and a chemical engineer from Agra University!). The plan was clearly chalked out and the roles assigned – 2 cars, 4 drivers and 5 entertainers (whose job was to basically entertain the driver and tickle him if he falls asleep in the highway!)..
12:20 am - Preps on in the Hostel
With all planned out, the preparations were underway.. Jai burnt a CD from his exhaustive movie-cum-audio library, which is probably bigger than all entertainment studios put together (thanks to the hostel wifi and thanks to Uncle!).. I ran to my room and picked up a ‘Shahrukh Hits’ CD and also tucked in a Tamil masti songs CD!! People started packing their rucksacks with eatables, camera, clothes etc.. All the while Udit alias Uncle was roaming around peeping into all rooms and getting excited about the trip.. You’re right, ofcourse he hadn’t volunteered.. However, the warriors were rightly proud of this ‘ideal married man’.. Here was a man who wouldn’t let small worldly pleasures or any other thing come in between him and his first, second and third love - ‘Futures & Options, Commodity trading and Oil Industry’, in the same order.. (sorry, Divya)!!
2:50 am – The journey begins..
Having bathed (jus’ joking!) and freshened up, the warriors were ready to get into battle-mode.. The tanks, a Swift and Lancer commandeered from Premjit and Tiwari were ready to roll.. “Jai Bajrang Bali… Jai Mata Di…” and the battle begins… I logged into Premjit’s Swift and acted as the entertainer for the first part of the journey.. Premjit turned on his high-end Sony stereo and mischievously smiled.. The stereo bellowed ‘G*** mein Dhanda dei…’ which was the latest popular number.. and it marked the beginning of the journey much to the joy of the passengers.. Alas, none of the warriors knew that it was symbolic of their fate in the much touted trip!!
The party made a lot of halts in Dhabhas all along the way.. To get the Retail Marketing experience, we decided to check into the Reliance Petro outlet and A1 café.. Tiwari, a photography enthusiast (“Oh, thank God, purpose served” heaved everyone!) went on a rampage with his own version of Kournikova’s latest Cannon camera, clicking snaps left and right and backside, capturing ‘all’ activities of the people in the process (for whatever reason, now that’s besides the point)!!
7:50 am - Agra
Battle-ground reached.. The warriors set their foot in Agra and the first halt was at Sikandra, the tomb of Mughal Emperor Akbar in all its majestic glory.. A quick tour and couple of snaps later we decided to move on to ‘more exciting’ destinations, unaware of what kind of exciting things were in store for us!!
9:40 am - Fatehpur Sikri
The next halt was at Fatehpur Sikri, once the capital of Akbar and the place where he had built palaces for his three queens, Hindu, Muslim and Christian, a symbol of religious harmony.. It also had the famed Buland Darwaza.. Once out of the cars, we were swarmed by kids who were much younger than 14 years.. They were doling out undeniably attractive propositions.. “Bade Bhai, (yes, they addressed Pheru!) aapki gaadi ko Rani Mukherji banaa doonga, only fifty rupees” or “Bade Bhai, whole place explain, only twenty rupees, believe me very cheap”.. They were offering a ‘bouquet of services’ from washing cars, to acting as guides, to selling memorabilia.. More than the deals, we were over-awed by the English accent used by the kids and the level of confidence and fluency with which they were using the language.. This reinforced the fact that experience is the best teacher, and they probably knew nuances that even a Marketing MBA cannot teach.. This made me wonder how many future Entrepreneurs were in making in that particular place..
11:55 am – Lunch time
On our way back to Agra, we decided to have our lunch at a wayside Dhaba which turned out to be the first of a string of faulty ‘managerial’ decisions that day.. We breached the first Don’t of eating in a Dhaba, by ordering without checking the prices.. To add to that, people went about ordering all kinds of fancy sabjis .. Poddar couldn’t do without a ‘Gobi Manchurian’, which the Dhaba cooks would have only overheard being discussed by tourists passing by!! We were offered strange looking stuff and had difficulty matching the names to the dishes, and we finally gave up.. The server identified Manchurian as a dish that had strange looking lumps soaked in thick muddy water, which strongly resembled something else!! Nevertheless we were famished, so people finished all the stuff double fast.. But, the real problem was with digesting the things eaten after we came to know about the bill.. To sum it up, WE WERE LOOTED.!!
You don’t get much out of arguing with a Dhabawala in some Godforsaken place, after eating his food, except for some unexpected gift which Pheru was entitled to.. Our stars were all stacked up against us so much that one-odd-tribal-charming-one-odd-tamed-monkey-tied-by-one-odd-rope managed to nearly bite Baabe alias Pheru!! We decided enough was enough and planned to carry on to savour the Taj.. Afterall wasn’t that one of the major attractions of our trip?
01:50 pm – Entry into the Taj
Off we drove towards Taj Mahal, where the climax of the day was carefully planned for us!! We parked the cars outside the park and walked through the park enjoying the Minar’s beauty, as we were approaching the greatest symbol of man’s love on Earth. Due to heightened security, we were forced to part with our mobiles at the locker.. We dutifully handed the 7 mobiles (ok, 2 were left in the car.. in hindsight it would have been safer to leave all 9 in the car!!) to the guard. Even though I was checking out Shah Jahan’s monument for the third time in two years, the magnificence of Taj overwhelmed me.. We clicked as many snaps as we could in front of the masterpiece..
Inside the Taj, we moved on to the basement where people generally leave their shoes.. We were relaxing there and taking snaps.. Kamnath grew tired and made himself a seat on the railing, just like some other people.. Now knowing about our unfavourable Stars position, a shoe-stand-wala rushed in from nowhere and started barking at Kamnath asking him to get up at once or else… Our Andhra Bull was infuriated at the treatment meted out to him in the lap of the Taj, so in Chiranjeevi style he retorted and it grew into a heated argument!! Now, the other guy started pushing Kamnath around.. Man, this was it.. The eight of us jumped into the fray.. “How the hell can you touch our guy?” we bellowed.. Pheru dropped a couple of interesting logics.. “Tu government hai to mai fauji hoon!!” Others pitched in with a couple of conveniently modified sayings.. The commotion was great and we attracted everyone’s attention.. Now, the public was getting some unpaid fun to savour.. and they lapped it up.. However, the couple Shahjahan and Mumtaz must have turned in their grave!! Finally, a policeman jumped into the scene and settled the dispute and the crowd departed with disappointment!! Proud at having set right a wrong attitude, we moved on!!
03:30 pm – Exit from the Taj
We were forced to come out of the Taj in less than a couple of hours as we were left with less time and no one wanted to miss the Agra Fort lest the tour be incomplete.. But apparently the tour was destined to ‘be finished off’ in better ways!! By now, the Taj was flooded with people and a looong queue had formed at the locker counter.. Saroop got onto the line and the rest of us sat on the railings to ‘critically observe’ the foreigners in a bid to appreciate other realistic forms of beauty!!
We were lost in our duties when suddenly Premjit rushed to us breathlessly “Someone has taken my mobile and has ran away from the counter.. We must catch him”.. It was a sudden jolt from the blue.. His latest Sony mobile was a star attraction in the campus and was worth more than 15k.. “Shit, it would be too much too lose it” we thought and immediately the Hero in us popped out instantly.. Charles who had till now largely been a silent ‘observer’ sprung to action fastest and immediately scampered towards the guy.. Poddar, unmindful of his already injured leg (oh, he tragically injured it by pouring hot water.. yes unintentionally!) started second on his way.. When something of this sort has happened, how can I be far behind? I started running after Charles.. Premjit by now recollected his senses and started running as fast as he could after us, shouting “Chor, chor, pakdo, pakdo!!”.. By now everyone, absolutely everyone around Taj started looking at us.. My pride suddenly grew King size and I felt like I was running the last lap of the Olympic Marathon!! I fastened my pace and ran as fast as I could behind Arun “Oye bastard.. Here I come, in search of glory”!!
Now a couple of guys in their 20s, in a bid to help us get the culprit closed in on Arun and caught him, mistaking him to be the thief!! Arun continued in his Hindi “No Bhaiyya, the thief is running ahead in a Brown jacket”.. Enlightened by his ‘fluent’ Hindi, the guys gave up chasing the culprit, leaving all the glory to just the few of us!! By now the ‘culprit’ was within visible distance.. to everyone’s surprise he got into a minibus which was about to start.. Off went Arun, Jai and Poddar into the rear exit of the bus after him.. Now, I thought fast “What if the guy got out off the front exit.. These guys would all lose time catching him.. Wow!! Great idea.. So I decided to surprise the culprit by directly rushing to the front exit.. Obviously flattered by my brilliant plan I rushed to the front… surprise surprise, I couldn’t find one!! Alas, it being a minibus, it had only one rear exit!! “SHUCKS” Disappointment writ large on my face at having my plan go down the drain, I rushed back to the only exit in the bus and jumped in! By now Premjit was at the guy’s collar and using unparliamentary words that involved motherly and sisterly relations!! From the rear end I had a glimpse of the guy’s face.. oh boy, was I shocked??!! The guy was bleeding from his nose to teeth.. There was blood smeared all over his face.. And there was Arun, still punching him from side to side and tirelessly beating him blue.. Bravely, he grabbed his head and banged it on the window, which reminded me of Rajinikant in one of his action movies!! An old man sitting at the rear end of the bus told me “This guy has already been beaten enough, please don’t join them in whacking him”.. Being a person who respects public sentiment, I decided not to intervene!!
By now, the guy was being pulled out of the bus and all our brave warriors were queued up outside the bus beside him.. Being a part of the chase, I proudly took a place beside the culprit.. The trophy was mine too!! A HUGE crowd had gathered all over the place, around us and it felt like we had won India a Gold medal in the Olympics and were about to be raised on to the podium!! The police promptly joined the party and I had a feeling that they had come to felicitate us with the ‘Red & White Bravery Award’ for 2006 for displaying bravery in public life!! We stood fast with the culprit. By now, some members of the crowd started moving towards the culprit to exhibit some of their macho on the caged tiger.. Immediately the policemen realized the seriousness of the situation and started frisking the guy to the nearby police booth.. behind him, we went.. and ofcourse the crowd followed..
Now, suddenly the guy started waving the mobile and claimed that it had pictures of him taken in the Agra Fort. He kept claiming that it was his own. Now, for a moment, I got suspicious. “How the hell is this guy so confident?” I thought to myself “Hell, whatever, we shouldn’t check the mobile before reaching the police booth.. verifying it here might land us in trouble”. Just then one brave soul in our group volunteered, “Ok, show us the picture. Lets see”! There I was waiting with bated breath looking at the mobile, as if waiting for the third umpire’s decision!! “Will he or Won’t he?”
The Hunters get hunted!!
He finally opened the mobile and showed it to the crowd – yes, it indeed had his picture!! “Shucks, We’re screwed” I told myself. Now Premjit whispered to us “I think there has been a small mistake”.. We shuddered and thought “A mistake? A small one? Oh, now the crowd will show us how small it was!” It was then that I noticed that I was wearing the FMS sweat shirt that day!! “Oh my God, of all days why today??!!” In our group, five of us were with a similar sweatshirt. Now, Premjit tried maintaining his aggressive posture by shouting to the guy “Then, why did you run when we chased you?” But clearly his voice was getting drowned and it was obvious that we won’t be able to hold the fort any longer.. Our fort walls had been breached and we were just waiting for the enemy troops to rush in for the kill! Slowly the ‘warriors’ tried slipping away from the scene one by one!!
But sadly enough, we had attracted too much of unnecessary attention, much to our detriment.. Now, we were firmly into this quicksand and it was slowly eating us away!! By now, Saroop was back from the locker and he started distributing the mobiles unaware of the quagmire we were into.. I was told that he had Premjit’s mobile too!! This confirmed things and made me understand what had happened then.. Fortunately, we all maintained that the mobile was still lost..
Just then, some guy cried out of public interest “Inko pakdo, aur inko maro”.. ZAP.. out of nowhere a whole army of people charged upon us!! Now, more people started taking initiative and they started identifying the ‘warriors’ involved.. One guy from behind me shouted “yeh bhi tha, isko bhi maro” and pushed me in.. Quickly enough, Saroop who was neither a part of the chase nor the mugging drama was identified and pushed in too, thanks to his sweatshirt! I consciously steered away from the crowd and moved onto the pavement.. Fortunately I wasn’t pushed in again.. By now, people were focusing on Maneesh, Saroop, Poddar, Jai and Arun. Of these people, Arun who was the prime target safely stood behind the policeman and seeked protection. Maneesh was frantically wrestling with a couple of guys in the crowd.. Then, I turned to look at Jai.. One very heavy blow landed on him from behind.. Someone who had obviously gotten enough from his wife was showing all his ‘bravery’ on our ‘Exilir’ head.. Jai, for a moment thought that one of his ears had ceased functioning!! Out of great concern he did “Ear testing 1,2,3 on the spot!!” Just then, another brave hen-pecked soul gave him another extra-strong blow.. In the impact, he lost balance inspite of all his rock-climbing-and-balancing-experience (This made it amply clear that he had spent more time ogling at foreigners in the mountaineering institute ;) !!) and his new glasses slipped... he just managed to grab it..
Now, it was Poddar’s turn.. One guy was charging at him from behind and there were about ten to twenty kids (yes, just like the same creative, fluent, young salesmen discussed earlier!).. Everyone has a first time, and these kids identified this was the right time to start kicking a person in their life, so they promptly joined in! They wasted no time in mercilessly kicking his posterior.. With great difficulty, they were just tall enough to reach his butts, so they landed a couple of shots there.. Poor Poddar turned back and got the shock of his life seeing him getting kicked by kids! Spontaneously, sexually offensive unparliamentary words found their way out!! But did it matter??! Now, he was getting too worried about how he would go down in history books for getting kicked by kids.. Just as if to pacify him, a policeman walked in and whacked him hard on the head with a lathi!! His moment of glory had arrived and now his soul would rest in peace!!
By now, the policemen had realized that it was for them to intervene and save the ‘brave warriors’ who were at the public’s mercy!! So, they started waving their lathis around, freely hitting anything it came in contact with.. Unfortunately, Saroop was being pushed around and he got hit by the lathi near his eye, which got swollen instantaneously.. He got the shock of his life by getting beaten for no fault of his! This made him crazy and he started bombarding the policemen and all those around him in hi-class Oxford-bred English, in his own flamboyant roundabout style!! We really couldn’t make out what he was upto!! The policemen tried controlling the mob and immediately decided to get us out of the place.. For once, I realized how important the Police force was in a democracy!!
They summoned a van and got the ‘supposed culprit’ and the ‘real culprits’ in!! With 5 of our guys in the police van, it was jam packed and it started moving out of the scene.. Hell, there I was still standing besides the mob on the platform and I got scared to death! I was all alone there, still in my sweatshirt.. (I decided it would be a bad idea to remove it in front of everyone lest they see and beat me for trying to hide!).. I tried to move towards the van but without success.. With a heavy heart I saw the van going away from the scene!! For the first time in my life I wished that the police pick me up too and take me to the police station!! But it was too late.. There I was, a sheep abandoned in front of a pack of hungry wolves.. For the first time in my life, I felt unsafe in an open public space!!
Quickly I decided to get the hell out of the place as fast as I could.. I didn’t know where the police station was and did not have the heart to ask anyone around.. So, I started walking in the direction in which the van had gone.. I had gone a few feet when I heard some commotion, and fear engulfed me!! “Oh shit, there they are coming after me!!” I turned back but didn’t see anyone!! So I continued on my way.. This kept happening again and again and after some time I realized I was getting too paranoid and consciously decided not to turn back lest I give some bugger in the public a signal!! After I had gone a few yards, there was noise again.. now it was approaching in my direction!! I had studied Doppler’s effect and no, this was not a hallucination!! I resigned to my fate and lay there waiting for them to come and take me!! Then reluctantly I turned back.. There, I saw Premjit being paraded by a gang of teenaged guys and about 50 kids!! Yes, there were about 50 kids swarming all over him..!! This immediately brought to my mind a scene from the movie ‘Black Hawk Down’ wherein an American pilot of one of the downed Choppers is paraded in the streets of Somalia with a horde of Somali locals and children swarming all over him!! Premjit’s face was white as snow, except for some light smears of the ‘culprit’s’ blood, which he had picked up while trying to hack the guy to death for committing the heinous crime of ‘buying a similar high-end mobile’!!
Now, Premjit also had his Sony Handycam around his neck.. I realized that the crowd was leading him in my direction.. Then, I made a quick decision to go and join him, come what may.. coz he was all alone and I had a feeling he could be threatened and robbed.. I felt that walking away from the scene would be a cowardly decision,.. So, I walked up towards him and much to the surprise of the crowd I joined him.. Then I learnt that the people were actually helping him go to the police station ‘safely’.. I heaved a sigh of relief.. The crowd following us slowly subsided as we reached the police station..
In front of the police station it was a happy reunion for the ‘warriors’.. Now I saw the ‘culprit’ again.. he had his face wiped clean and apparently he just had a broken nose.. To avenge his anger he punched Arun once in the police station and things were even now.. (ok, atleast theoretically!!) The policemen told us that it was an unfortunate coincidence and a clear misunderstanding, however they emphasized that we should have refrained from hitting the ‘supposed culprit’!!
4:50 pm – The drama ends
But now we were reluctant to walk back to the cars, lest we be lynched by the mob!! With great difficulty we pleaded the Police Constable to escort us back to the car.. He agreed and there we were, the six of us being shielded by a lathi-wielding constable till we reached our cars!! Tiwari and Premnath were the only two people in our gang who had moved out of this confusion early on.. they joined us at the car park and we left the place as soon as we could.. Me moved to another part of Agra, changed or atleast covered our sweat shirts and went in search of first aid for Saroop.. After getting him treated, the tempers cooled a bit and we checked into a bakery and ate to our hearts content.. We had too much coming at us in too short a time!! To commemorate our memorable journey, some guys bought the Agra-famous Pethas to carry back! By now, we started missing the safe environs of the South Campus.. So, we packed our bags and started on our journey back.. Fortunately, I don’t have anything to say about the return journey!! With Tiwari and Pheru firmly behind the wheel, we kept going.. When I was woken up, there we were in front of our own ‘China Bowl’! It was a very nice feeling!! We grabbed a quick dinner and rushed back to the hostel to catchup with some much needed sleep...
Inspite of all the goof ups and the mob-effect, I am sure this tour would find a place right up there in our memory!! Long live the Taj!! And long live our 'pleasant' memories!!
4 comments:
dei vennai kesari..sathiyama onnum puriyale da.
Guru
lol.. Guru, you would need a Hindi-translator to understand some 'critical' portions..
Sorry couldn't help it!!
:) Kesari.
Kesari..
This is unforgettable...
To think of it...I WAS THE ONE..!!!
Still feel the goose bumps
You bet..!!
Last week I re-read this post line-by-line.. felt so unreal!
Thanks to you, I feel not just the goose 'bumps' but also people kicking ;)
Kesari.
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