‘Love is in the air…blah blah…blah blah(again)…Happy Valentine’s day’, said an early morning message I received from Lakshmi Bhuvaneshwaran, a good old friend of mine from school. I woke up only to find the day looking like any other day.
Wait…let me can all the crap and get to the point…let’s fast forward to the point where all of us were done having a Chicken Biriyani at Sapphire that had me boasting throughout on how good the Chicken Biriyani at ‘Topform’ was, call it regionalism. Soon afterwards we decide to surprise Jayan who seemed to be in a total hurry to rush off to his place with Akri on ‘Valentine’s day’…I have no guesses for what the reasons could be. This is the age when guys stay back at college even if a strike is called, go to empty labs and ‘flirt’ with each other only to fall prey to the prying eyes of poor uninformed faculty who are unaware of deviations in sexual orientations of the modern world. Embarrassed at being caught red handed at their naughty act, they blog offering explanations…blasphemous!!
A bike sped off with a roaring two stroke engine with 14bhp of untamed power, the Sreekaryam boys were on it. The Stallion said it’d tag along…and I took off on my ride with the only committed, ‘proudly wearing red’ guy among as my pinion rider.
Yamaha and Honda…whoever said that they were companies competing with each other in the land of rising sun was seriously mistaken. The head start and 0.7 bhp of additional power was no excuse for us to lag behind the Sreekariyam boys, we had to be first, we had to be first at least to satisfy the additional 17 cubic cm of air that our ride spat out every exhaust stroke. I decide to go full throttle only to find ourselves getting nowhere near the Sreekariyam boys. Disheartened by a strong ego pull, I decide to give up the race and make face of a seasoned racer who thinks of himself as too good to race. A sudden and heavy downpour exaggerates the melancholy and makes it hard to actually ride, which, as we shall later discover led to the downfall of the Stallion.
Having lost all hope of catching up with the Sreekariyam boys we deicided to wait for the Stallion to join us. As we wait one of the Sreekariyam boys makes a call to inform us that they're actually waiting for us near the museum. Aha! So they didn't rush off after all...shortly after that call, Jedi Master AS calls.
Jedi Master Gemo: Nee evide?
Jedi Master AS: Njanonnu slip aayi..
Jedi Master Gemo: Vallom pattiyo?
Jedi Master AS: Umm..kai murinju!
Jedi Master Gemo: Evide vacha?
Jedi Master AS: Kaudiar CCDkku aduthu.
CCD Kaudiar, Valentine's Day...was Jedi Master AS watching the traffic or was he staring elsewhere so as to not miss something? After Ragam 07, I think the second one is more likely. Anyway, within minutes I and Jedi Master Varun arrive at the scene..and find Jedi Master AS with a face that could also have said, 'Dude, I think I shit in my pants'. The Sreekariyam boys arrived soon and all of us together tried our best to look concerned. The Stallion looked fine but was not without a few bruises on its face.
I rushed with our hero to ‘Santhwana’ hospital only to be greeted by a roomful of eager nurses, much to our hero’s delight. I left our hero alone with all the nurses and his imagination. Meanwhile I went back to fetch the Stallion and bid Jedi Master Varun and the Sreekariyam boys good bye. Within minutes I was back at Santhwana Hospital and waited for our hero to run out of his imagination, which was going to be like..never. Few minutes and five stitches later our hero arrived at the hospital lobby…meanwhile…Jedi Master Gemo was being ‘forcibly’ engaged by the deceivingly beautiful hospital receptionist. JM Gemo, who was (and is) alien to the dark side of the force had no idea that he was being played on…his ‘innocence’ was being cleverly utilized by the allies of the Sith in disguise. Thanks to the timely intervention by injured but brave JM AS, the day is saved and JM Gemo was saved. Thanks to JM AS, the sands and waves of Goa can still sing about the virtues of JM Gemo.