I am putting up at Yadgar Guest House on Grant Road which is very close to the red light area of Mumbaland. Can't put my finger on anything worth doing so I am lying on my bed and eavesdropping.
‘Just pushed a 4 crore deal with Reliance’, he is talking into his cell. ‘All in days work for him I guess.’, I think.
And now, this guy, on the bed beside mine is talking of winning a part of Videocon’s hundred crore ad account. And we are fighting over peanuts in the Express, struggling to make client’s end’s meet. The client’s ends seem to meet only if they happen to go around a maze called TOI.
I turn back and I ask him, ‘Are you working in the ad industry?’
He said, ‘No I am Sahara marketing country head.’
And then for a long time he kept on talking on his phone with the corny ring-tone, reminding me of early Japanese hello kitty tunes or polyphonic anime background music.
He receives another phone call from someone who he apparently holds in great respect. After switching off his cell he turns to me and says, ‘That was the marketing head of CNN and he has offered me assistant vice president in CNN.’
He enquires about me and what I am doing. Some time passes. It’s a slow day to begin.
Later I show him MICA ragging pictures. He says he wants to be associated with MICA in some way or the other. He says that his one and only hobby is education. All very impressive! He tells me all this without asking for it. It’s almost as if he is trying too hard. But for what?
He is M.Sc. microbiology, CA, MBA from US; I didn’t get the name of the institute clearly. But I like his handshake better than any of his degrees. His is one of the warmest handshakes I have had.
He claims knows my boss personally (which reminds me that my immediate boss thinks I am a dhakkan and she is not deterred from saying it aloud so that the whole office can hear). ‘Sixteen years in the industry beta. I know your boss’s boss too.’ he declares. I would have puked at the sound of beta had it been someone else.
‘Your hostel’s name is his son’s name’, he brings to my attention. Talk about magic. Mumbaland is Magical no doubt about it. There is something about it I can’t put my finger on but eventually I will. It’s something about the people. It’s got something to do with the way that they always give you directions on the road.
Previously, before meeting the Sahara guy, I had told the hotel guy that I would be shifting from the AC to non AC to save money but now. It would save me some money about 350 bucks in ten days time. If I shift it would mean, limited interaction with the Sahara guy- Amulya Bhatnager. Will I shift? Will I? NAH!
I ran down and told the hotel guy to give the bed to someone else.
Had I shifted there would have been another post. But I guess it will be only after 10 days. I am not promising anything but it will be called and it SHOULD be rightly called ‘Nami-Baba & forty four roomies’ for the obvious reasons.
Next day, he continued to talk about his life. I have not seen anyone as forthcoming about sharing his life with me. He narrated his life with the objectivity of narrating a movie plot.
Tomorrow we have to fight for peanuts with Reliance. Got to rest. Like the Sahara Guy would put it and almost make me puke, ‘Take rest beta.’
When I asked him why he was staying in a dorm when he can clearly afford better, he replied ‘Or else how would I come across people like you.’
And then investigating further into the ‘people like you’ part, I heard him early in the morning talking to one of the two ladies that he talks to and telling then about me and saying in his know-it-all singsong voice ‘ekdum bhola hai woh, ekdum soft hai, MICA mein padh raha hai’. Argh…one more person who thinks I am bhola. It never ends does it? When will people stop judging me from my face and look into my eyes and see that slyness in them. It’s a very subtle form of slyness but its there. There is only one person till dare who has ratified the presence of that slyness. If it weren’t for her discerning vision, I would have missed the slyness myself.
Off and on the Sahara guy will have long discussions on his phone, apparently with two ladies and that too alternately. To one he would be offering Rs. 200,000 to settle a property dispute and then arguing with her that if she accepted the money he would consider her as a bought article. And quite emphatically he would be very sorry doing that. After all she’s his precious. Too precious to be spent too much money on. And all wasting of breath when he knows all too well that prostitutes only understand the language of money.
And latter he claimed that his wife was coming to see him in the adjoining hotel and so he shifted his base to a place called Super Hotel. Does he really think I am that bhola. Shame on me. Shame on him.
Later I was privy to the discussions of the other seven roomies that I have once the Sahara guy left and they narrated how he comes to Yadgar which is supposedly a vantage point to access the Red Light area and how he is spending his corporate money on girlfriends (a pseudonym they have for prostitutes). And they turn to me and ask, ‘aap girlfriend rakhte hain?, agar rakhte hain to kabhi dil se pyar mat karriyega.’ I nod my head on the expert advice while thinking, ‘in love with the idea of love.’
And it so happened recently that, one of these days, when I was returning from Lower Parel to Churchgate (having shifted to VT now) in the train, I saw him traveling with an undisclosed companion, needless to say female, one of his girlfriends or wives or bought articles or whatever he chooses to call them. If you did not happen to know the guy you would miss the undisclosed chemistry between him and the maiden, the way he looked her, the way she gazed back frequently, all too conscious of the crowd and the way they vacated the train at Grant Road station, leaving most of us wondering why would a female climb into a male compartment.
Yes I saw it all; I witnessed it from my vantage point-Yadgar.
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