Episode 3: Reaching Gateway of India (THE SUPER POST!)

The reason why I say that it's a super post because... It includes a SUPER MISER (Nikhar i.e. myself!) SUPER SINGER (Pranay), SUPER GEEK 1 (Abbas) and SUPER GEEK 2 (Uday).. so sit back and enjoy.. btw... story's on the move! 


Episode 3: Reaching Gateway... 

Half expecting the morning to be extremely chilling in February, Nikhar Oza shivered while standing on the edge of the second-class compartment of the Churchgate slow local. Morning inside the local train looked as lazy as a cat. A man who looked like a worker in construction site (judging by his roughed up shirt with colors of paint and rough hands) slept on the seat caring nothing about the other passengers looking at him in disgust.

Nikhar was a wrong man in a wrong place at the wrong time (Nitesh Sharma would agree!). He was a wrong rather an odd person in his group as all others were way too show-offy, high-headed and had certain peculiarities but he was strictly ordinary. He was just an ordinary boy with no succinct peculiarities except him being a miser. He also perceived himself to be a good writer, to be true he was just another loser who wanted him to be different than others hence boasted heavily of his writing which was as good as Himesh Reshamiya’s claims of being a world-class musician.

Bombay looked a modest place just waking up from its sleep. Nikhar standing at the edge let the gushes of the passing wind touch his body entering through a thin white t-shirt as he looked on the morning activities on the tracks, watching naked kids shitting on the tracks and a cloud of mosquitoes hovering around them. He wondered how the day will come about. He too was one of those just like Shubhankit giving the party.

As cynical as he could be, he was neither excited nor too pleased about giving a party. In the hindsight he thought, was it allowable on his part to give a party? He calculated the amount he was to spend on his good friends, not-so-good friends, best friends and not-at-all friends.

A typical miser!

His retrospection in his solitude (trains in Bombay are the best place to be lonely) indicated him that he was just like a brush of rare air with no lasting impact on his so-called friends. Speaking of which, the immediate friends that came to his mind were Pranay Mathur, Abbas Dawood and Uday Mittal.

In the odd composition of his group, Pranay was the only melodious tune worthwhile. He had more or less every quality to be the hero of this story. He was a fabulous singer/ guitarist (By the way, Pranay was bringing his guitar on board!) He was most probably the best fast bowler Rajasthan had ever produced. He was way better than local Rajastani- gays playing in the Rajasthan’s IPL team. He had an absolutely terrific sense of humor. Perhaps he could go on cracking jokes for an entire day without break and without boring the others. To the delight of the ladies, he was a complete romantic.

But then there were some minuses as well. He had no looks of a hero. He was darker than coal. Finding him in the night when lights were off was almost too easy as a sheer brightness of his teeth in contrast of a completely black background would indicate his location, the other of being him a little (understatement) careless. He always forgot where he had kept his wallet, his clothes and others’ books.

On the other hand, Abbas Dawood unlike him denying umpteenth times was a geek. He was as frail as a matchstick. He was a worthy brand ambassador of Polio campaigns as he always looked like a victim of malnutrition. He was also a die-hard Harry Potter fan. Perhaps the biggest achievement in his life was him getting his hands on the first copy of the half-blood prince. He had been interviewed by NDTV on his achievement. But other than that Abbas was a coder, designer and an artist who had mastered over computers and software. But he also was a man with huge aspirations. He wanted every best possible gadget (Macbook pro), good-looking girlfriend (Ahem… Ahem…) and so much money that even his softwares would go crashing while counting it. 

And finally, Uday Mittal!

Uday was a nice guy who cared absolutely nothing about the world except some of his friends. Rumors had it that it was Uday who was offered the role of Neo in the Matrix movie as he knew everything about computers. He was a walking, talking, shitting computer. He too was a geek like Abbas and thus there was always that silent animosity between the two. They hardly ever said anything good about each other. And even if they did, the author of this blog isn’t sure how much they meant it. Perhaps, both of them were a little jealous of each other (The open source v/s Windows battle).

Uday also had amazing suicidal tendencies. Since being friends with this notorious group, he had proposed almost half a dozen girls without even caring to look in the mirror (He was 5 feet 4 inches to be precise!) And every time a girl rejected him, he would go on a solitude mode, victimizing his cell-phones, gadgets and what not (and bet you they can’t be anything other than gadgets)!

Ring..Ring.. Ring..

Interrupting Nikhar’s moment of solace was his state of art old mobile phone which was being preserved with severe tapings of cello-tapes around it. The caller was Abbas Dawood.  Abbas hastily told him to be at the Gateway of India within an hour. And when he reached at the Gateway of India, it was not the giant monument or the empirical Taj Hotel which looked intimidating to him, it was rather the scene of those 25 odd faces smiling and waiting for him to shell out his pockets intimidated him. And as he went towards them he whispered under his breath, here we go!

But why are we talking of a miser like Nikhar? He isn’t the protagonist of this story. The humpty dumpty pumpkin little husband of Marian- Mr. Farooq is the protagonist of this story.  ;)