A night with Police Mama !!

Ya I know its been ages since I last posted, but then its also been ages since I last had enough free time up my sleeves for quoting my rhetorical brain fissures on blogger.com !!

So keeping aside the barrage of updates sparkling across my personal life, I would like to come straight to present tense. It’s been about half a year now, having left Satyam and working for Big Blue – having left my darling Mumbai, working in the Garden City of Bangalore – having left my pretty better half and living the single life of bachelorhood in this strange place…. the list is simply endless.

So came last weekend and I was back to hometown on one of my fortnightly trips. Though putting up with sweaty arm pits, putrid smells and bumpy roads in my lovely humid Mumbai, I was still enjoying with 3 nights of partying right from wed to Friday, right from Firangi Paani to Temptations, Mumbai Café to Bonobos – Mumbai never stops to surprise me. Came my last - 4th night in the city, and I decided to join my bestest pals at a house party in our usual weekend haunt – Rana’s house (though we call it Rana aka Mr Chaukanna’s house, it actually belongs to Swapneel aka Mr Paang – who has rented it to Mr Chaukanna over a matter of good will quite a few years back).. The single room kitchen house was jam packed with Mr Pang,Mr Chaukanna, Myself aka Mr fattu, Nitesh aka Mr Kallu Mama, Siddharth aka Mr Bakchoudi king… and a couple of other punters whose names I was simply too drunk to remember !!

“Whiskey in the jar” was as usual on the house. Mr Chaukanna had made some amazing Laal Murg (just for the uninitiated - apart from being daily drunkards, we enjoy priding ourselves with being masters of culinary art as well). Mr Paang was as usual at his rolling best, cleaning ghaas pus and making joints for one and all. The night was quite stereotypically imbibed with our usual rituals of having quick bottoms-up’s, DJ Chaukanna playing his favourite Punjabi numbers in between our Pink Floyd and RHCP karaoke sessions with Mr Paang on the guitar, fairly loud music and even louder drunkards making noise on a 4th floor flat with an open window – absolutely nothing seemed out of the ordinary!!

At about 2am, Mr Kallu alongwith one of the punters went out to get some cigarettes (did I mention Mumbai is a 24/7 city where you can get anything and everything in any corner at anytime – godammmmn Bangalore). Around 2.15am, we heard a knock on the door and Mr Paang sprinted up to get the door (as he is the smokiest of us all [plz don’t try to grammatically correct me on the word smokiest – it is just one of my many termed adjectives to one of my many term friends {don't even think of asking me what’s a Term Friend now}]). With a half burnt joint in one hand, he opened the door excitedly by the other. From way inside the dark room, I could see the color of his face lit up in the corridor light – turning quickly from an excited yellow (ya he looks like shit) to an angry red to a paling blue). He quickly dropped the joint behind the door as the door was pushed open by two Mama’s - (no no , not our Kallu Mama – but police mama) !!

Here is how the conversation went:
Mama1 – kay re,, kya chal rahela hai idhar? (whats going on here)

Paang (at his courteous best) – kuch nahi mama, bas dost log kaafi din ke maad milke khaa pee rahe hai

Mama 2 (touching every glass, bottle, ash tray, laptop screen, speakers with his laathi) – dekho dekho, mast bottle ke saath scene chal rahela hai – ekdam full on !!

Mr Bakchaud (sprinting up on his feet from his bed slumber) – kya kaka (i wonder how one man can be a mama and kaka of 2 of my closest friends at the same time - small world aint it?), hum toh sirf aise hi baith ke khaa pee rahe the.. kuch problem hua kya ?

Mama1 – (looking at the bottle - i could make it out that he indeed had a deep taste for whiskey) Complaint aaya hai ki idhar der raat ko awaaz ho raha hai,, ab complaint aaya hai toh action toh lena padega re baba.. (looking at mama 2) – chala re, daalo inko neeche gaadi mein, statement banana padega !!

At this time, Mr Chaukanna who is totally smashed up with a deadly mixture of weed and whiskey, awakens from his trance – slides his way next to me (where I am sitting in a shit crouching position – almost about to shit)… and says – Bhai, chal in dono ko udaa dalte hai !!

Me (looking at him with a mouth open as wide as a gargantuan whale mouth – remembering all my past drunk times with this man where he had broken pub tables, bar bottles, and subsequently his own neck – courtesy: bouncers) – Yaar Raane, this isn’t a good time for you to talk … you please keep your mouth shut !!

Mr Chaukanna – Nahi yaar, sirf do hai .. easily maarke fek denge khaadi mein !! (talking as if they were a bunch of mosquitoes squatting on our hands sipping our alcohol induced blood)

Me (trying to push chaukanna back into the bed while bakchaud and pang are trying to give some gyaan to the constables)

Bakchaud – kyaa saab (first mama, thn kaka - now saheb .. I am slightly confused with the taxonomy here), we dint know that there was a complaint, warning deke chod do, if building people would have told us , we would have not turned the speakers on – maa kasam saab !! (little did the cops know that the society has been complaining every weekend to Paangs mother for the last 3 yrs)

Chaukanna is whispering all the while “chalna dost uthna,, le na saaleko – itna gym kyu jaata hai,, le daal - mein hu na tere saath, SARKAR hai tere saath”

Mama 2 – Kuch warning baurning nahi chalega,, chalo thane aur fine bharo !!

Bakchaud (now loosing his non existent cool) – Aise kya kiya hai humne,, aapke pass warrant hai kya ki aap aise hi andar chale aaye. Kiss cheez ka fine, FIR dikhao hai toh !!

Mama 1 and 2 together (loosing their ever existent cool) – Aye pahile yala aat ghya (put him in [jail] first) … maaru kya maaru (waving his laathi in hand) ..

Seeing the laathi, Chaukanna was constantly trying to get up and move towards the thavlas (cops) ,, while I was trying my best to hold him down – verbally and physically…

Mr Paang now moves in with his smooth talker skills (ya he is a natural sales guy) – Kya sirji (mama, kaka , uncle, sirji - ek kaam , anek naam), chod do bacchon ko … (slowly pushes the cops outside the door) – and waves 2 hundred ka notes towards the cops…

Mama 1 - Paisa maanga kya tumko, paisa maanga – chalo utho re chalo gaadi mein !! Waise 1200 hai toh nikalo (arey abhi toh bola paisa nahi manga??) - warna chalo gaadi mein (Frankly, I still dint get the statistical logic of the 1200 total, was it 300 each, or was it 500 for the bakchaud , 500 for the owner and 100 each for us silent sitters – god alone knows)

Paang – Mamaji , aise nahi bola humne, but abhi gharme paisa nahi hai !!

Mama 2 – Toh ATM hai na,,, chalo bhanje (finally rishte ne najayaz se jayaz mode liya - paise sachmuch BOL-Ta hai ), ATM chalte hai !!

Bakchaud (his eyeballs and ear walls both popping out of his head at the same time) - sale kaminey thavle, terrorists ko chodke idhar baccho se vasuli kar rahe hai … (obviously not aloud)!!

Chaukanna is still trying to get up towards mama’s revolver holder.. and I am still trying to hold him down . Chaukanna whispers again – Kamine sale fattu, lena us thavle ko.. Maaya bhai hai tere saath,, Bhope bhau tere saath hai,, le daal mein bolta hu terko !! (Now am totally confused - is chaukanna Sarkaar or Maya or Bhope?)

Paang immediately calls kallu mama, who is waiting below the building as the watchman has tipped him off that cops have been in our flat since about 20 minutes now… Luckily kallu mama has 300 more and Mr Paang somehow manages to convince the cops to accept the 500 bucks and bugger off towards their next extortion destination.

Finally getting rid of the havaldars - with an air of comfort, pang comes in – pick ups his packet of ghaas and starts rolling again. Bakchaud gets up, opens the window and starts the blasting music again – offcourse without the speakers,,, Kallu mama comes in and starts asking impatiently as to how all this happened… an intense righteous debate is triggered by Mr Bakchaud on how we sustain the bribing eco-system by greasing cops palms the way we did today… Kallu tries to counter saying “sale tere north mein kya hota hai”,, Paang now licks the filter paper giving a final touch to his rocket and saying – “Mumbai mein aise hi chalta hai” .. me and one of the punters is backing Paang and Kallu saying Mumbai cops are much better than any other cops around the country, atleast they talk and not hit first,,, and keep quite for non serious offenses if you grease their palms … Bakchaud is still trying hard to argue over the now served laal murg + rice…

In in the midst of all this constant chatter – Rana Chuakanna suddenly gets up with a serious face and asks me – “Bhai, tu tere sasur ki gaadi laya hai na,, kaunsi hai?? SX4 na??” … I look at every surprised face in the room, from pang, to kallu, to bakchaud to the punters.. and I say “Yes Raane,, why do u ask” …

He gets up, starts wearing his pants and says - “Chal abhi ke abhi nikaal, full speed mein police station mein ramm karte hai…. Na rahega baja, aur na bajegi baasuri”

Unfortunately those are the last words that come out of his drunk mouth for the night, until the next morning when he said “uuuii maa” over his bruises and swollen cheeks, when his hands and feet were still tied up and we were still beating him up – all the way long - (apart from Paang who was still rolling) !!