The Fast and the Fucked : Manipal Drift

Sitting in the railway station...reading the word Udupi...in English,Hindi and Kannada.wondering what is which sound in the writing in Kannada.

waiting for the Netravadi Express...30mins still left for the train...

It's still there fresh in my head.the first time i came to Manipal...to meet up with Arun,Vin-Dee,Jeeps...all of my really amazing friends from forever.

day1.I reach by 8am in the morning...by 10 we borrow a car from Arun and Vin-dee's friend(mistake no1).A golden Santro...THE GOLDEN SANTRO.

Immediately we all decide to leave to Suratkal...lemme tell you a little about this nice sleepy town....

This is a nice place in South Karnataka,SECULAR India which is generally very sleepy and is also home to NIT.Oh! I almost forgot...This place in the recent past witnessed terrible killings and riots in a very religious way.

As I was saying immediately we all decide to leave to Suratkal to meet up with the other half of our gang.Two beers and a breezer later,(NOTE:The driver did not drink at all)we reach there.Everyone was too busy PRACTICING for some music show in Mangalore.(the place I would soon hate)

Since all the others were too busy practicing we decided to do something more interesting(mistake no2).

Hence we set off to Mangalore (''why the fuck?''everyone who reads this blog would ask at the end of it).

Almost reached outside Suratkal and was happily overtaking passing vehicles...nothing out of the ordinary,if u are used to Indian roads.Going at normal highway speeds.Everything was going ok.

Then It happened....

We were overtaking a bike and then the biker came closer to us at the same time.Then his mirror scraped the side of the car...

Vin-Dee and Mee(not in unison but together and after the thud sound) :FUCK! We hit the motherfucker.

Arun:What do we do?

MeE: FLY! (Mistake no3)

Arun and Vin-Dee:Wtf??????????

MeE:Fly....just fly...run...

Vin-Dee:Man,shouldn't we stop and check whether the guy is alright??

MeE:Fuck him man(sounds inconsiderate...but i was shit scared...dint wanna get killed in the hands of VHP-which stands for Vishwa Hindu Parishad...and the minute and least important factor that i was a Muslim)...just drive fast Arun...real fast...

Vin-Dee : Man the guy has his hands outstretched into the air and looks like he is bleeding,i think we should stop man...

Unluckily,the decision was to fly (not unanimous...hey this ain't no democracy)

MeE : Fuck it man, we too far to even think of stopping (maximum of 150m away from the incident)

Arun (after some F1 style driving and a few kilometers away from the place):I think we safe man...

Vin-Dee (he is least listened to,implying mistake no4) : I think there is a bike following us.

Arun and MeE : Naah...they just normal bikers (who later look like menacing VHP activists)

Next , a scene from a Hindi movie...the bike cuts us off at a fork..and tells us to park the car on the side.The guys...one of them is a sorta plump guy who supposedly has a kind smile(the retarded sorta) and had an army cut,mostly 1mm of hair all over his head...but at that instant he radiated pure evil.The other guy was a wiry dude...dark...with curly nigga hair,the sorta fuck who would tie u up,rape your mom,steal everything from home,and burn it down anyway.

Vin-Dee : We fucked for sure...
MeE: They gonna beat the crap outta us...

MeE thinking : FLY again....(thank God that this thought was not voiced...otherwise mistake no5)

We park on the side...Arun rolls down his window.The wiry fuck puts his hand in and tries to take the key(very much unsuccessfully).

After a small talk (read:Order/monologue/dictatorship) we decide to go meet the hit (in the hit and run case) at a secret,undisclosed location...Sathyaji's(Communal leader) house.We would reach there and get to see Sathyaji...

Till we got there we tried to do some small polite small talk (which would basically keep his train of thought away from the book titled 1001 Ways to Torture People Mowing NRI's).

So we basically asked him what he did for a living.''I am a social worker...and so is the one you horrendously mauled''

REWIND!Social worker???FUCK!That means he belongs to an extremist fundamentalist party.And he had a bright blood red teeka on his forehead.Implying the three letters i love to hate VHP.

So one of us basically asked him in plain language if he belonged to VHP and he said yes.

Due to an immediate brainstorm I say ''Even Arun is in the VHP''(attempt to make sure that we have at least one limb left to beg or something like that)

Random thoughts at the defining moments before entering Sathyaji's compound...

Vin-Dee : We are gonna get beaten up.

MeE : I am gonna get beaten up more...I'm a Muslim.

Arun : I AM NOT IN A STATE TO EVEN THINK.

Vin-Dee(hence proclaimed the bravest amongst us) steps out of the car,followed by Arun and finally me...thoughts such as ''I'm not supposed to even be here''...''what the fuck have we brought ourselves into this time?''...''why meeeeeee??''...''can i just leave Arun and go back to Kerala?''...were swirling around my head...OK!Agreed that i am a freaking coward

''Sathyaji...'' the plump one called out...he was no where to be seen...

''Maybe he just got swallowed by the earth...lets go back...maybe he fell into the well...lets go back'' I kept saying to myself.

Sathya-ji came out and behold! There came our angel in the form of a baniyan and lungi clad human being with a 1mm uniform hair cut.

He looked like a nice person...even if he wasn't at least he did not slap on our faces upon our outstretched necks ever so ready to receive them...he was a darling.

By this time I was reborn as Ravindran Kumar...I would like Baba Amte...or maybe Lal Krishna Advani...but all time favorite was Dhirubhai Ambani...but alas I was christened as Ravindran Kumar...sheeesh, even my fake name sounds mallu.

Time : 2 'o clockish.

MeE and Vin-Dee (for the millionth time): Paisa is not a matter...any amount we shall give (where the fuck from?).Jus let us go...we are students.

If we could shed some tears and stuff like that,i swear all of us would have wailed at the top of our lungs.
In between comes the SI(Superindent of Police) to Sathya-ji's house on black TVS Apache to enquire about the ''Law and Order'' situation.

FUCK!We will get fucked now...at least now...

But Sathya-ji told him that the situation was under control and did not need any police intervention because we had come to the decision that we were going to pay for the Fuck's medical expenses.

But still, he walked towards us...one hand on his holster,the other hand adjusting his hat (well ummm...I don't think he had a hat,so wiping his sweat off his bald head).Dust flew around us...tumbleweeds rolled along....

Then for a second the sun shone brighter than ever,the glare off his bald head blinding me more than what the apache could ever do...the glare blinded us...just the silhouette we could see...he reached for his holster and took something out...and walked towards us.After coming close enough for us to realize that he did not use deo,he put his hand into his shirt pocket,took a pen out placed it on the notepad and bam! fired the first question...

''Tumhare paas DL hai?''(do u have a driving license?)

''Kiska gaadi hai?''(whose car is this?)

''Gaadi ka paper dikhao''(show me the papers of the car)

''Telephone number dedo''(give me your telephone numbers)

Then he left dreaming of calling us up late at night stroking parts of his body...

Finally the Maulee is brought to the secret undisclosed location...(sombre music plays in the background)
Sympathy flowed through our veins the second the guy limped his sorry ass into the compound of the house.He looked very much thinner than before we hit him...sheesh,loss of blood makes you thin.

His name was Keshiv...which we lovingly transformed to Keshiv-ji when he was around and pure and soulful expletives when he couldn't hear.He had just got first aid and nothing much was wrong with him other than the fact that he lost some skin and was limping(hey,that might not be us,maybe a freaking birth defect or a mutation).

So we took him to the doctor,Doctor Bhandarkar in our golden Santro.Took a few X-Rays and then came the really good and sophisticated bad news...

''Looks like there is an internal bone problem here...seems like his bone tip chipped off at the joint'' said Dr.Bhandarkar.

''Hey,maybe he was born with that'' I thought.

''You will have to go for an MRI scan'' he said.

''Isnt that for cancer??'' I thought.

''That is going to cost you a lot''said the doctor.

''Hmmm...a lot is well 900bucks is a lot,isn't it?''I thought.

''The MRI scan will cost around Rs5000 and if what i strongly believe is the case,he will require a complicated surgery,the whole thing coming to lets say,approximately Rs28000 - 30000'' said he.

There are times in your life when you wish that you would be just standing and a huge huge bird would come and swoop you away and drop you somewhere far away where the element of trouble does not exist.

And trust me,this is such a time.

On hearing this,the three of us fainted...I strongly believe one of us tried slashing his wrists with a blade...

Then he came up with a solution...Claim Insurance.Sounds simple doesn't it?Well considering that the car wasn't ours and the fact that this car is on the hitlist of Manipal Police and losing of credibility everywhere,this was not that simple anymore.

Then he came up with an even better solution...why don't we put someone else's car/bike?None of us owned a vehicle...and no one wanted to put their vehicles in the station for a few days...plus court case and all the fuss that comes along with the package,even that did not work.

Went back to Sathya-ji's house and sat in the compound for another 1 hour or so.

Since we were men of our words(plus shit scared),we agreed to this and decided to go for an MRI scan at KMC Mangalore...after all,we were responsible for what we did...we hit the guy,we almost killed him,we told him we will take care of him...

Always been in shit throughout our lives...we were overtly confident that we could get out of this mess...

And with our hearts heavy and shit worried we set off to Mangalore,ironically; our initial destination...the orange rays of the sun shone upon us...

there was light at least...

to be continued....

MeE

JB signin off...