Cakes and Cokes-gujju style

This story did not make it in the finals of the Madhouse selection due to space constraints. though it was well received when first posted. We will re-run some of these for some fun. Names of the girls in the story have been changed.

Bhavna Patel, daughter of a zillionaire, had caught Shashank’s fancy. She hung out with a lacklustre sidey named Heena Shah who doubled as her chaperone. How should our intrepid Shashank woo Bhavna with eagle-eyed Heena watching their every move? Elementary my dear Watson! Plant a counter-chaperone on Heena to distract her. So how did Shashank do it? Equally elementary my dear etc.: find a Heena equivalent among the guys. A lacklustre sidey who would act as if he’s doubling as a chaperone too. And who fit the bill? Elementary etc. etc : Bakul Desai was coerced into counter-chaperoning Shashank. This arrangement worked for the first thirty minutes. Shashank regaled Bhavna with his knowledge of Hindi music, paintings, poetry, literature, art, culture and coordinate geometry. But alas! Within thirty minutes of fielding Heena and her gujju accent the hapless Bakul SOS-ed for Soumitra to relieve him.

All this was happening during the happening annual festival Mood-Indigo where our hostel 4 was running the cafeteria. Yours truly, as the canteen secretary, was making tea out of pulverized sand and sandwiches out of hastily borrowed butter from hostel 2 across the road. Into the café walked Shashank and Bhavna with chaperone and counter chaperone in tow. Soumitra, acceding to Bakul’s summons, hotfooted it there to double as joint counter chaperone.

Shashank, in another bid to impress Bhavna told her, ”your dad, with all his zillions leaking out of his nostrils, cannot buy Coke (this one was in 1978 when George Fernandez had banned Coca Cola from India and had offered Thums Up and Campa Cola as a substitute). My friend Bakul, who operates this café, has some coke smuggled in from Kathmandu! he also has some delicious pastries!” The impressed Bhavna almost reached out to kiss Shashank, but first raised half an inquisitive eyebrow about pastries. Understanding quickly enough that he was treading on Gujjuland, Shashank did an impromptu translation. Pastries, he explained to the nonplussed Gujjus, are nothing but tiny cakes.

Thus it came to pass that while Shashank the woo-er and Bhavna the woo-ee and Bakul/Heena/Soumitra as the chaperon-ers/ees were savouring banned Coke and delectable pastries, Heena, all wide eyed innocence and freckles, with sweetness oozing from her lips asked a simple English question in gujju: “who paid for this cacks and cocks?”

Soumitra yielded first. He broke into a fit of laughter while he was drinking Coke/Cock and he thought it necessary to release it from his nostrils and spray it all over Heena’s new expensive gown that her “pappa” had bought for her. I managed self-control approximately two seconds longer than Soumitra. On account of the fact that I was suffering from a bad cold, I had to open my mouth, and my more powerful spray caught Bhavna in her eye and a bewildered Shashank on his chin. Shashank the tube light released the coke/cock on woo-ee and chaperon-ee a good twenty minutes later, while we were walking them back to their hostel. They had used up their hankies by then.

- Bakul