The Script of A Romance.

"It's been such a long time! Why don't you tell me any stories nowadays?"

"Hmmm, I don't know, I think I've run out of stories."

"You? You'll never run out of stories! So tell me one now!"

"Now? It's almost midnight! There's only an hour left for New Year."

"So? It can be a small story."

"But I don't remember any right now."

"Then make one up! I want a story now!"

"OK OK, I think I got one..."

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"...well?"

"Well, I really have run out of stories. I just can't get anything interesting enough."

"But I wanted to hear a story tonight..."

"Yeah, me too...What shall we do?"

"You could make one up?"

"I could, but I dunno if it'd be any good."

"Let's see."

"Hmmm, OK, here goes..."

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Ever hear the term "whirlwind romance"? Yeah well, this was something of that sort. But it involved five solid months of negotiation. Negotiating for a cup of coffee.

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"Wait, this is about us, isn't it?!"

"He he, well yeah! Nothing else comes to mind. I think the New Year spirit is finally getting to me. I want the last few moments of this year to be about us and our crazy romance!"

"You are the crazy one. You put the moves on me! Coffee, it seems, you wanted this to happen, didn't you?"

"No! You were interesting to chat with, so I just wanted to see where it went! As if you didn't want this to happen! So don't give me that!"

"It was all you! You put the moves on me! You had all these corny lines, and I for some reason thought they were funny at the time!"

"Well, you put the moves on me too! You gave me a coffee mug for my birthday, when we'd barely started talking! By the way, you still think I'm funny."

"That wasn't a move! I give gifts to all my friends!"

"Aha! Guilty! That was a move if ever there was one! You remembered my birthday, you were prepared with a gift!"

"It was just a friendly gesture! But you, you were good, weren't you? You were full of lines and quips and quotes and jokes and whatnot!"

"Well I still am! Do you remember you kept hiding from your friends whenever we went out together?"

"Well I didn't want anyone to know that I had a heart! Imagine the horror! They all used to think I was made of stone!"

"How did I manage to slip under your shields? I'm good, eh?"

"You! You used coffee to good effect. Tell me, you chose Cafe Coffee Day on purpose, didn't you? You wanted me all high on caffeine!"

"Yeah right, like you were the picture of innocence! What was the whole coy, blushing act? You think I didn't see right through it? You were carefully reeling me in!"

"Ha ha! Well, I had to keep up with you! We must've paid a fortune to Cafe Coffee Day!"

"All because you were paranoid your friends would snigger at you if they saw us in the Food Court!"

"Well they would've! You should've seen their faces once they started getting some idea. People, I tell you!"

"I tell you! Remember I tried teaching you to cycle? You were just enjoying the joyride instead of pedaling!"

"Well, I told you I couldn't cycle!"

"Everyone should know how to cycle. But you lazybum! You were just sitting there as I pushed you around!"

"Heee! And do you remember the bike rides you gave me back home because I would miss the bus waiting for you to finish your goddamn laundry? Black Magic, what do you think she's up to these days?"

"Hmmm, she must be thumping along somewhere in Chengalpet, I'm sure that rascal Gopi must've ripped off yet another gullible soul. But I miss her. Maybe we'll get a Bullet sometime soon."

"Oooh ooh, you remember the mutton biriyani at FC1?"

"Yeah, and you used to make me eat half of yours all the time!"

"Well there was a lot! And you remember the fat cook at Asian Kitchen?"

"He he yeah! He used to ask me where 'madam' was?"

"Good god! How scandalous! And you remember you gave me Leo the Lion, all giftwrapped? Good god, my team were like Christmas came early, they couldn't stop ribbing me!"

"It's almost midnight. I'm gonna stop this imaginary conversation in my head and call you now."

"Oh..."

"Wake up when you hear the ringing please?"

"I will."

"You have to."

"You know I love you right?"

"I love you too."

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Happy New Year, Baby Boo.

Stories From Long Ago - Part II (a.k.a How I Discovered Water)

"So what story are you going to tell me today?"

"But I thought it was your turn today!"

"But I like listening to stories from when you were little. I want a story!"

"Ok, ok, ok. Hmmm. So, once upon a time..."

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Summer meant running around all day, climbing trees, watching the same old movie tapes again and again, and over again. Home Alone. Tom & Jerry. Beautiful People. The Gods Must Be Crazy. There was this plant in the Kalahari desert. It's root looked something like an overgrown potato. And the bushmen scraped the skin off the root and squeezed it, and they got water. 

If you dig deep enough, you will find water. I read that somewhere. Also, the soil was always damp when we dug, no matter how dry the sand was at the top. So the water was there. It was just a matter of digging deep enough.

But then there's only so deep you can dig with your hands. We needed some heavy machinery. There was this rusty garden hoe lying in the darkened store room. The answer to the water problem of Cherthala.

So one fine, jobless morning, me and my trusty friend, started digging for water in my backyard. As I hacked through the earth, we became excited seeing the damp soil beneath. "We're almost there! Keep digging!", he yelled. And pretty soon, there was a thunk!, and water started flowing out of the hole in the ground. Well, I hadn't expected it so soon. Because it was supposed to be really deep underground. But who cares, we'd struck water! We had solved the water crisis! We were going to be famous! (...yeah, bang on, that last one.)

Soon, the backyard was flooded, and the water was snaking through the fence into my neighbour's yard. By now, my aunt had started yelling at me from the house about something. I had been too elated to listen to her, but the water wasn't stopping. How do you stop a natural source of water? "I'll plug the hole with a brick!", I said. There were plety of them lining the hedge anyway. The brick disappeared into the "spring" with a disappointing plop. And yeah, the water kept coming. Now what? The geniuses that we were, we decided to "build a dam!". Yeah, we started piling up mighty walls of sand around the edges of the mini lake. Epic fail. The water just flowed past like they didn't exist.

Now, the neighbours' servants started coming out to see what was going on. Turns out the water in the houses had stopped. One of them yelled at us saying "I haven't cooked lunch yet, and now their little girl doesn't have any food for the afternoon, all because of you two!".

By this time, we had sort of figured out we'd probably need to hightail it to the arid Kalahari to escape the hiding of a lifetime when our parents got back from work. And that the "spring", was in fact an underground water pipe. And the "thunk!" was the sound of the hoe breaking a sizeable hole into it.

An odd jobsguy from the nearby hospital turned up after a while, and surveyed the destruction. Water was still bubbling up from our "spring". Two yards were flooded. A group of seething servants. And two very sheepish looking kids.

"You guys did this?".

Er no, there was this giant crab...

Er no, a mole...

Er no, this hole just *appeared* this morning...

"Yeah...we were digging..."

He turned off the water, and fixed it, and we stood around watching him. Pretty soon, all the water seeped back underground (...from whence it came.). The hole was covered up. The water in the houses was back. And I think the little girl had her rice porridge or whatever she wanted for lunch.

I didn't come out of the house for a week.

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"Hahahaha! You were a menace, weren't you?"

"Hey, I thought I could hit a natural spring!"

"Hahahaha! A natural spring!"

"Well yeah, the way they showed it on TV, I thought I could. But I knew something was wrong when the water came out so soon."

"Hahahaha!"

"Yeah, yeah, that's enough. Now go to sleep."

"But I'm not sleepy any more! I want another story!"

"Another story? But if I tell you all the stories now, what will you do tomorrow? And besides, you have class tomorrow. So go to sleep now."

"Hmmm, ok. But will you tell me another story tomorrow?"

"Yeah, I will."

"Ok. Goodnight..."

"Goodnight..."

A Bit Of Luck, A Bit Of Black Magic

I found her hiding behind a row of Royals in various stages of repair, at "Bullet" Gopi's "Diesel Bullet Garriage". Yeah, that's how it was spelt, as the board that hung over his garage announced.

A protege of the Bullet Legend of Pudupet, Jafar Ali, Gopi was one smooth talking, grease-monkey genius. He knew how to sell a Bullet. Not that people who came looking for Bullets needed much convincing. But then, it takes something special to sell a Bullet chassis, fitted with a diesel motor, without an RC book, or chassis number, and no sales deed, to gullible software engineers who know they're getting ripped off. Yep, he was one of a kind.

So, anyways, after umpteen trips to the garriage, to find my Bullet, she finally caught my eye. Jet black, with a red flame tattoo across the fuel tank, she looked like a caged tiger, is what I would like to say, but it was closer to hobbling nag. Now, though your's truly was smitten by the prospect of a Bullet, I still wasn't confident of handling one, let alone a "God-Knows-How-Old" machine like this one. This is where Ashan comes in handy. Having already succumbed to the wiles and guiles of Gopi and acquiring The Amazing Thumper, Ashan had become Resident Expert on Diesel "Gopi" Bullets.

Kick-starting Thumper was a religious experience. You began with a silent prayer to The Powers That Be. A dozen spirited, progressively flagging kicks later, you could actually see the gates of Heaven. And finally, when the engine roared to life, the angels sang.

Why should she be any different? So we manoeuvred her onto the centre-stand (...standard position for kick-starting for amateurs, pros kick-start while sitting...), and Ashan did his little silent prayer. And kicked. Vroom. First kick, I kid you not. Plumes of smoke billowed from the exhaust and blocked out the sun, the thunder of her engine rattled the pebbles on the ground below her. In reality it was slightly less dramatic, but I was floored. I wanted her. I needed her.

The crafty fox Gopi noticed, and I could see the price go up. As I communicated my intentions to Gopi through my version of Tamil, I could see the gleam in his eyes. Hook, line, and sinker. We shook on 20k. He would polish her up, get her fitted with lights, a horn (not that she needed it, but just in case), and in general get her ready for the road. Well, in a general, more-or-less, you'll-keep-coming-for-repairs kind of way anyway.

I remember the first time I took her out on the highway, from Chengalpattu to Singaperumal Koil. I remember the raw, untamed power, and I was scared stiff to turn that accelerator more than absolutely necessary. I kept accelerating and pulling back, afraid that I was going to be the First Malayali in Space if I went too fast.

Slowly though, I started getting used to the intricacies of handling a Bullet.  "Bullet" Gopi liked to say, not everybody can ride a bullet, it takes "telunt" (loosely translates as "talent" in English) and a "neyck" (knack, n, A special way of doing something). Another of his tactics to reel 'em in. Well, it took a hell of a lot of patience too.

Gopi fleeced both me and Ashan mercilessly. If it wasn't the lights, it was the kicker. If it wasn't the kicker, it was the brakes. If it wasn't the brakes, it was the clutch cable. Oh boy, the clutch cable. How many times that thing snapped on me. Sometimes, she would just refuse to move. For no apparent reason. In the middle of nowhere. And just when you start contemplate ditching her, she would come to life again and chug along. Like nothing ever happened.

She still needed a name. The One Who Writes For Food, declared her a "chick magnet" on sight, and suggested a nomme de guerre. Black Magic. And "Black Magic" she was named.

Boy, did she work some magic, Ol' Black Magic. The Prospective Missus declared, "I don't get on bikes, what if it topples over?!". And then she saw her. In all her patched up glory. Black Magic just had this neyck with people. The lady said Black Magic spoke to her. I don't know what they talked about, but she agreed to a ride, and the rest is history.

Well, not exactly. She ran out of diesel 2 minutes into the ride.

Long story short, The Missus stuck around inspite of that fiascoed, first bike ride. She loved the big, black, noisy, smoke-belching machine, right down to the tiny lights that never worked. She doesn't approve of my current ride, a Star-City, not one bit, she thinks that bike is the devil incarnate. But Black Magic was her favourite. She still asks me sometimes, "What do you think Black Magic is doing now?". A bit of luck there, I guess. But more than that, a bit of Black Magic.

Black Magic made sure that every day was an adventure, in some sense of the word. Another story, another time maybe. Till then, ride safe, and wear a helmet!