WARNING!! THIS IS ALL GOOD FUN! DON'T GET OFFENDED!
I stared ahead at the padded white ceiling of my cell, my head resting on my hard cot, and my mind eagerly trotted back to a sunny summer's day in Lucknow. I was walking down familiar streets and you could tell by the way I used my walk that I was Rani Sahiba's man so had no time to talk. My smile was warm and polite, my manners decidedly reserved, my entire being was quite dull and light. Then as if a rainbow had alighted in my life after the incessant rain, a colorful dupatta, emblazoned in blues, reds, pinks and greens flitted across my vision and landed in the filthy groping hands of an awaara gunda.
It was a sight that my former timid self would have turned away from; assuring myself that it was not my battle. But that colorful dupatta had awoken something in me I did not know existed. All of a sudden I wanted to rip those goons limb from limb like my uncle, who used to mud wrestle with his mates in my beloved village, Pendupur and I did. With all my desi hulk might, I punched them, boxed their ears, ripped one hair off, and even tickled to distract a heavier and bulkier guy than me, and finally leapt on him like a gorilla. After squeezing the tatti out of him by bouncing on his bulbous tummy, I snatched the dupatta off the ground, the piece of cloth that had given me so much courage. It was the same feeling I had felt years ago, when my grandfather, Punduram Baba, showed me the cloth he had woven during the revolutionary days. I felt free today. My entire body was celebrating independence from the Angrez Lord Governors. I walked over to the girl hiding behind her mother. I saw pretty but ordinary eyes, my Rani Sahiba had better, and a face that was too thin and pale. But the one thing that enthralled me was the nose ring. Oh! How much I wanted to affectionately twirl it, rub it, make it look shinier.
And all of a sudden, she stepped forward to claim her dupatta and I had to shield my eyes from the bright source of light. It felt as if the Bodhi Tree rolled all the way from Bihar to Lucknow, just to enlighten me after ages of darkness. She was covered from head to toe in parrot green shalwaar kameez and gotta lace adorned every corner. The gotta lace flashed in the sun and prisms bounced off every surface. It felt as if she was one of the ancient Apsaras, here on earth, inviting me to Indralok. Her sleeves were bedecked with the most adorable fuzzy pom poms and all of a sudden I could hear the beating of drums and see countless turbaned and bearded men come surround us in a circle and do the bhangra. I felt my shoulders twitch to the rhythm, my head tilt from side to side and my feet tap to the beat. And that was when I realized what was missing in my life.
The Pendu Touch! She was the epitome of pendu! She walked pendu, she talked pendu! And she stole my arrant pendu heart in that instant. I followed her for a few days just to make sure she was pendu, and that she wasn't faking it. When I heard her say "Laad Governer" in that gavar way of hers and her calling a phone "pphone", I fell deeper and deeper in the utterly bewitching pendu love.
She was my pendu patakha and I couldn't wait for her to blow my world apart! A world where Rani Sahiba had made room for nothing but pastel. Pastel colors, pastel sarees, pastel food, pastel sex. It had all been fine and dandy till Khushiji had shown me exactly how boring pastel was! I had tried to be faithful to Rani Sahiba, I had had the room repainted in to more vibrant colors so she might catch the pendu fever; I had sent Khushiji to work for Sale Sahab so he might learn a thing or two about the color palate and dress his sister accordingly, but Raani Sahiba had carried the colors in such an Angrez manner that it had put me off.
But before I could ponder much about my pendu patakha, the jailor came in and ordered me to go to the visiting room. Could she be here? Miracles do happen! I was just thinking about her, and she's here to fill my dreary life with some vibrancy that radiated off her Chamkeli clothes. I trotted my way to the visiting room, with a huge eager smile on my face, when the sight before me just melted it like those ice golas.
"Soumyaji. What are you doing here?" said Shyam, as his nose scrunched as if he just smelled his late pet buffalo's crap.
"Shyamji. That dumb blonde Khushi Kumari Gupta is getting on my nerves. She's so hare-brained and so bloody idiotic! I don't even know what my Arnie sees in her. Anyways, I'm here to tell you that they're getting engaged in a month's time. AND I DON'T WANT THAT NUMBSKULL ANYWHERE NEAR HIM," said Soumya, or Mya as she called herself, as she stubbornly stomped her foot and let out a piercing shriek.
"Okay okay. Drink some lassi and do some breathing Aasanas. Anyways, yes. This is troublesome indeed. We have to separate them," said Shyam, as he picked lice from his long beard, thinking deeply.
And BAM! That evil smirk of his face creeped up, making his face wider, allowing the beard to separate into two halves, almost resembling an archway, a secret hidden pathway.
"We have found the way," said Shyam.
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Munching on Cotton Books iBBarney
Cricket
Anupamaa
