Parde main rahne do...Parda na uthao.....

Adi, Avi and me were meeting after fifteen years. 15 years after the Bombay blasts. March 12, 1992, the day our standard tenth exams came to an end. Things had clearly changed.

Adi is a chartered accountant, married, slightly bald and with a paunch in the making. Clearly representative of the double income no kid generation. Has a wife who is much smarter than he is and is doing equally well, if not better.

Avi is a filmmaker who is about to start his first movie in September. He already has a few original and adapted screenplays to his credit. He has long hair which touches his shoulders, but is still as thin and athletic as he used to be. “Not married but father to three kids already,” he says, touting his atheletic provess. Was he joking? Or did he really mean it? I don't know.

But first things first. Bombay traffic takes me and Adi, one hour and hundred bucks to get from Worli to Carter Road at the end of Bandra ( some may call it the beginning – who I am to argue). As soon as we get down, I am sneezing profusely (not a good sign of things to come). Our bladders are about to burst. We have consumed four litres of water along the way.

Suddenly I remember seeing a Sulabh shauchalya somewhere. So we go looking. Our sensibilities do not allow us to pee in the open air, immediately. Times had changed. 15 years back, we would have been more than happy to empty our bladders around the next empty dark corner we could find. After 10 minutes of going up and down I realise, there is a Sulabh at the beginning as well at the end of Worli seaface or the end and the beginning of the Worli sea face. Depends on the way you look at it. Not here. This clearly isn't my part of town.

Our inhibitions discarded, we make our way towards the sea. A lot of fish is lying on the road. Left there to dry. I am the first one to go in. Adi stays guard. I turn my face towards the sea, open my zipper and let out a sigh of relief. A cold wind is blowing. This is the best time I have had in the entire day. Adi goes in next. Twenty seconds later I see him running towards him with a couple of dogs behind him. Looks like he zeroed in on the wrong area. Even dogs need their privacy in this city.

“My wife will kill me, if she ever finds out what we just did”, he says. Makes me wonder. Don't women like their men to feel comfortable. That I guess is a million dollar question. And million dollar questions are to be asked, not answered.

We make our way across the dug up road to Cafe Coffee Day... Then it strikes Adi, “You know we should have ordered a cup of cappuccino ( the cheapest coffee on the menu) and asked for the washroom”, he says. “Yup, but then you would have never had a story which you could tell your grandkids”, I reply. He smiles wryly at me, probably wondering, “For a bachelor, I really think lo g term!”

Soon we are joined by Adi's cousin ( let's call him D, since he is a costume designer (or do we call them film stylists now) of some repute in the Hindi film industry). D reminds me of Saeed Mirza. The director who made some memorable movies on the city of Mumbai ( Arvind Desai ki Ajeeb Dastan, Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho, Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai and Saleem Langde pe Mat Rowo). Soon I am told D is working on Mirza's next movie titled “Ek Tho Chance”. So the resemblance doesn't stop there.

Avi joins us around half n hour later. He has just finished a music sitting for his new movie. Three more friends of D join us and we head towards “Golden Moments”, a cheap drinking joint in Bandra, which D and his three friends recommend.

Five minutes into the bar, I realise I am the only non smoking teetotaler ( as anyone would confirm, that is a rarity these days) around. For the next four hours that we are in the bar, my lungs are smoking like a chimney.

I keep ordering Diet Coke, to their Signature Whisky and Old Monk rum. By two o clock in the morning I am around ten Diet Cokes down. My bladder is full again. But that is not the really interesting part....What happens in between is more interesting.

Life stories are first shared. Avi had lived in for around six years and broken up. Adi had married the first girl he proposed to, on a rainy night in Bangalore. Three drinks down, everyone starts to open up.

“Ye film industry bhi badi chutiya cheez hai”, says D. “ Bilkul I agree. You know this famous director of commedy movies ( with initials AB) says, he can't visualise his characters unless he fucks a cheap whore daily. I overheard him saying that. And who provides him with the whores? The producers of his movies,” replies Avi.

Adi is scandalised. They don't talk like that from where he comes from. “ Let us talk about something else. This is getting too complicated”, he says. But no one is ready to listen to him. “Sharab, shabaab aur kabab”, is clearly at work. People are three drinks down, munching their chicken and meat kababs and want to listen to some good hindi film industry gossip ( at least that is what it is to the outsiders. The insiders feel otherwise).

“Oh you should listen to this one I heard. This famous hero ( the same one who used to be a drug addict earlier) like is the case on most nights, felt like doing it and needed a new woman. So he called up his favourite pimp ( a famous producer of the late 80s and 90s) and asked for one. The producer was just coming out of a session with a woman. The same woman got sent to the hero's house. And you know what, he fell in love with her and married her. Isn't that amazing? An industry whore has become a respectable housewife”, says Avi.

Five drinks down and the night is really hotting up. The Indian Cricket League is on and the Hyderabad Heroes are playing the Lahore Badshahs. Six balls twelve runs. Abdul Razaq is given the ball for the Hyderabad Heroes. The first ball is a wide. People in the bar start swearing. “Saala pakistani. Haryega apne ko”. One run of the next ball. Five ball ten runs. The excitement is really building up. Razaq bowls an in swinging yorker, the batsman completely misses it and is bowled. Four balls ten runs and two wickets in hand. Razzaq bowls two more wide balls. More swearing follows. Clearly Pakistan brings out the best and the worst in us. Next ball there is a run out. And then Razzaq bowls out the last man. In between a single is taken. Hyderabad heroes win by six runs. Everyone seems really happy and more drinks are ordered.

“You know I start making my movie in September. Fuck no one can stop me now. No one. And after that any heroine will be ready to sleep with me for a role, except Aishwarya, Preeti and Rani. In fact some of the bong bombshells are already ready. But you know why I wont do it? Because I studied at St. Xavier’s and have a value system in place”, says Avi. Everyone around expresses surprise. Avi has a confused face. “Kuch zyada bol diya kya?”, he seems to be wondering. The worst though is yet to come.

Its two thirty pm already. The bar owner has been begging us to vacate. But the guys simply wont listen. At three o clock, cops from the local police station burst in. I am the only sane guy around who can talk. I take out my id card and the inspector smiles. Lets the seven of us go. “ Agar agli baar pakda to seedhe Anda cell main dalega”, I hear him shout as we leave the place.

Avi though has still not had enough. “So Mr Kaul, you think you are quizzing bond and know a lot,” he asks me. “ Avi I haven't quizzed in ten years now”, I reply. “ Hmmm, so what. I also know many things about many things. Don't you think you have sold yourself to DNA? You stay only fifteen kilometers away from me and this is the second time we have met in two and a half years. You got to know me Vivek. You know what, I know models who would be willing to have you anytime. Break down the facade you have on. Break it down. The world will be a much better place Mr Rushdie*”, came a long wielding response from Avi.

The mini- speech sets me thinking ( in fact I am still thinking three days later). Was he really drunk? Were his age old insecurities coming out? Had the tough life in the hindi film industry done this to him? Could he really sleep with the heroines he said he could? And had he really fathered the three kids he claimed to have? Or did I have a facade on?....

Half n hour later, me and Adi are driving back in a cab towards Worli. The Mahim Causeway is looking beautiful in white light, like most Bombay does, when the population is sleeping. I drop Adi at Hotel Hiltop and start walking back towards my room. As I walk back, I can see the waves hit the Worli sea face. I can see people making their way into the darkness around the seaface with water mugs and buckets in their hands. The dogs are still barking. Another day is about to begin....and I am still sneezing.

Then I make my way towards the sea and ......

* Avi feels I resemble Salmaan Rushdie...

(What has been written above, may or may not have happened and may or may not resemble any person living or dead, for that matter)