Saturday, July 7, 2007

Gang wars? Caste fights?

As the last ray of sunshine withdrew from the rather lonely road located indistinctly in the locality of Lawson's Bay in the erstwhile colonial town of Visakhapatnam, two bikes, a honda dio and a seebeezee zooming unseen until then skidded to halt. The road infront was blocked by three bikes. The opulent stickering proclaiming the make and the brand of the bike went unnoticed thanks to the rather menacing demeanour of the riders and their rearseat accomplices. The six guys made a beeline for the dio, its occupants, V and me got off my bike a trifle unsteadily, R on the seebeezee, fervently hoping that the delegation was oblivious to his prescence zipped off without looking back.
"So you think meeting my girl at CCD is really cool, huh?" thundered biker 1
I put my hands in my pockets.
For the benefit of the readers who might mistake this as an act of bravado on my part: i did not want the guy to know my hands were shivering.
"Say something you Goddamn neuter!" he yelled
"We've known her since school, shes our friend," V ventured.
This retort earned V a recitation of the most choice abuses, linking V in coition with almost all of his kin, both male and female. He then twisted V's genealogies and finally ended by invoking a rabid dog to munch my friend's - I'm sure you all know what.
Friendship is a strange thing. Well, strange enough for me to push a guy with a backing of five hooligans and spit out at him, "If the problem is with me, face me, bitch!"
I regretted it the next second.
In a flash, three guys had me pinned to a tree. biker 1 advanced on me. It took the better part of my will power to stop myself from begging him to let go of me. Pride-stranger still.
In typical movie fashion, he lit a cigarette, blew the smoke on my face.
wills navy cut, i thought to myself inspite of my plight.
"Bada hero banta hai?!" popular phrase, courtesy the hindi film industry. trying to play the hero, huh?
He then deliberately advanced his hands towards me, the cigarette dancing inbetween his expert fingers. A second later an almighty singe on my collar bone told me he stubbed the cigarette out right under my neck.
The pain wasnt much, but the unfairness of it all made me indignant. It was my turn to swear.
I informed anybody who would listen that biker1 took pleasure in copulating with the vilest and tiniest of insects since they were the only creatures small enough to be pleased by his absurdly microscopic danglers. I too twisted geneaologies, forged his kinship with his next door neighbours. Then, just as i started to inform him as to what an obscenely mutated donkey with 3 heads suffering from foot and mouth diseases would do to him, i was rudely interrupted by the sound of revving engines of five bikes.
In the next five seconds, the situation had reversed, R pinned biker1 to the tree and my chuddibuddy, B's gang surrounded the 5 hooligans. I was rather harsh in judging R, he did not run away, he had taken off to aid the occurance of a larger good.
I dont think we ever realise that the worst thing someone can do is to strike when the enemy is down. However, I wasnt in a state of mind to observe philosophical niceties.
quid pro quo, I snarled as the back of my palm connected with his jaw causing a dull thud and a scream of agony.
Well, Avenger probably does feel like God because as R held down biker1's hand spreading out his palm, B rode his Avenger slowly and deliberately over biker1's hand. A wierd crunching sound and his hand was a bloody mess. Dirt and goo mingled with scaled shreds of skin and bright red blood.
I left Visakhapatnam the next evening (thankfully in one piece, because apparently B was something of a BigB to all the local hooligans) and i didnot see biker1, nor do i know his name, i certainly hope i dont see him again, so the tale ends there, or so it should have, but for a tiny doubt that was nagging me at the back of my mind. She was not anybody's girl. So who the hell was the guy.....
So i call up BigB from hyderabad, we exchange niceties. I thank him again profusely for saving my life and once again a hindi movie phrase makes its way into the story, there are no sorries and thank yous in friendship, dude, he informs me.
"By the way, BigB, who the hell was that guy?"
"Chuck it, bhai, You wont understand."
"Try me"
"OK, it was a caste thing. You being a Brahmin, dated a girl from the merchants' caste (which was biker 1's caste too), so the poor bloke just wanted to issue a warning, but what apparently incensed him further was the fact that V was from the same caste as those guys. Thankfully I'm from the scheduled castes and so could save you that day. Heavens help you if you date an S.C......"
And i thought we had stumbled into the twentyfirst century!!

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