Stories of No guts & No
glory: My friend Govind.
I
believe that every single autobiography ever written in this world is a type of
self appreciation. But there could be
some exceptions, especially when you add some other’s story in your auto biography;
a kind of ‘returning the favour’. You
scratch your head and take a look at them and tell yourself that “yes, this
bugger deserves a mention”. So likewise
I’m talking about one of mine, who has been with me in the thick n thin and a “partner
in crime” of my journey so far. Since I don’t want to reveal
his true identity so I’m naming him as
Govind.
Govind
has been my best friend since my childhood, who, in other’s point of view is a
kind-a different, because he likes to argue a lot, and sometimes his arguments
have even brought me to flash points, that I wished I could land a punch on his
face! But he’s cool, like the Raymond in
‘Everybody loves Raymond’ and people loved to hate him and hated to love
him….in my opinion a classic example of yin-yan !!
Both of
us have chosen different career streams so we hardly meet each other, but we
kept our camaraderie through phone calls which never extended more than 5 mins
and through short -messages which usually had a prefix and suffix of bi**h or
f***er . Whenever I got long leave I
used to head home, but its not necessary that Govind has to be there. On such a rare occasion we met each other,
somewhere in the middle of May in a particular year.
We greeted each other in a very
formal way, with shake hands, and immediately understood that suits only for
“formal’ folks and not for us. And
within 20 seconds we exchanged those “short- message-prefix/suffix- words” in
the best possible permutations and combinations. And
for a moment I could see he was troubled, he didn’t prove me wrong either. Without saying a word Govind started to walk
leaving a silent message saying “please walk with me” and follows an in depth
conversation where I am bound to be the listener.
And here comes the little
romantic story of Govind. He had a
peculiar way of talking, especially to the ones he found interesting, for me it
looked like an ever enchanting act of a Snake Charmer!! And Girls never stood a
chance! But this time the Hunter became the hunted (as told by him), and he
fell for a girl, who happened to be the talk of the town, infamous for her
stinking-guts and an obnoxious aura, and through his words I could understand
that this girl definitely had a board hung around her neck which read “Don’t try
the F**k with me !!” !! So, the boy
liked her, the girl liked him and both of them liked each other and entire
world (seemed to) like it and a general
happiness floated everywhere. And by
doing some arithmetic I could confirm why this bugger went off the grid from
Mobile range for that specific period, like someone landing in Antarctica and
not even a fart was to be heard in the tropical region. Yes, our boy fell in
love, somewhere cool and my usage of Antarctica befits absolutely.
One specific interest which
connected me and Govind were “Painting”.
Sometimes I borrowed his ideas and he did the same from mine, when he
does it I would call it ‘Plagiarism’ and a quid pro quo prevailed! And our guy
made a painting for his paramour. He
even showed me the picture in his mobile, which took my breath away pronto, with an in depth arrangement
of contrast colours, a theme of a mythical creature, in simple frame embedded
with the sole purpose of a person’s life in the past and future; a type of
message or philosophy which one could behold forever. For that time I envied him, where it never
appeared to me as a reckless stunt of a lover who could do anything for his
lover but chose to project it in an entirely different way.
As the narration advanced, it
reached a painful chapter where both of them had to part ways, like every good
things which (naturally) finds its own death !! And as a nail on its coffin the things which
he’d presented her landed back in his hands , like wrist watch, pendants, some
papers of caricatures, dress, ring (are you kidding???),artefacts….but not the
painting!! Also a footnote which (must have) broke his already broken heart
into several pieces (like diced mint leaves)!! Well, the narration ended there
followed by some Mojito and beef dry-fry and some consoling words from me to
him. While I walked him to his home I
could sense that our good old Govind had the greatest pain of his time.
For the next 2 months Govind was untraceable,
but then came a call in the middle of the night. It was Govind , all excited to tell me about
something which he was about to do!! His excitement brought the entire supply
of adrenalin in my body to an immediate deployment, that I could feel the hair
at the back of my neck in a sturdy attention position. He promised me that he will tell me the
entire story once he’s done with his so called “execution”!!!
That same night his tweet
appeared in my timeline which read : “Track
“the a’ la Menthe” in my ears….and the last card to pull….showdown!! B^) “. Which did not make any sense to me, and I
went to sleep wishing that our chap is all right in whatever shit he’s in. In the morning just by curiosity I searched
in Google for the track named “the a la menthe” and it turned out to be one of
the soundtrack from a movie which , by seeing, one can assume what he was upon
to that very night!! Watching the result on my desktop all I could do was a
smile accompanied with a soliloquy “crazy bugger!!”. And the end of August Govind appears once
again in front of me, with a naughty smile which developed into a full blown
laugh, even I couldn’t understand what it was but I knew, it possessed a
plethora of thrill in it. We quickly
found a chair in our favourite hangout and then came the revelation of the
century!!
“I stole it!!” Govind said it
with a thrill, rubbing his palms. And
the next part of my story goes like this…..
His girl presented that painting
into a club (where me and Govind used to visit once in a ‘bluemoon’) as she was
leaving the locality with her family and as the actions speak louder than words
it was clearly a message for him that “I-am-doing-this-to-forget-you-and-this-f**king-painting-doesn’t-mean-anything-to-me-anymore”
!! Govind was all determined, even
though it was rough patch to cover for both of them, to recover the “masterpiece” (as I named it)
he made from any hell-hole under any prevailing condition. I was so thrilled to hear his version that it
almost sounded and heated me in a similar way I watched the series of “Prison
Break”.
He planned his heist well before
he landed in the locality. He made a
photo-print of the painting in the exact size and collected some vital
information like the time of functioning, security in the area, the exact
location where it was stowed. It
eventually appeared like the so called ‘curators’ kept it in a store room along
with the linen and other furniture.
Govind landed on a specific weekend where a famous celebration of a
temple and a mega gathering of people took place. Luckily to him the lock seemed like a Chinese
made (all respect for China!) which opened without even chanting
“open-sesame”. He waited till the night
and made a call to me about the act and tweeted the same!!
As the last peg oozed in through the wind pipe
he spoke once again “I loved her, that thing which I made was our
baby, it was her vision and the strokes which made a painting is my gift to her….
I cannot abandon my child, it’s with me and I’m taking it to my home!!”.
************
As a footnote, he left a
message behind that fake painting which found its way to one of the walls in
the club; it read “it’s a fake
honey!....love, yours ----!!!”
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