Chicago in Mumbai

I was working in Technopolis Knowledge Park. 'Wow! Rockin duuuuuuuude!' hehe...
TKP is located in Andheri East, near the MIDC area. It's a colourful place, with lots of music. The road leading to TKP is called 'Mahakali Caves Road'. But I tell you, even dear ol Mahakali cannot ease the suffering that people go through on that road! It's a two-way road, but it doesn't have a divider. People don't follow a lane system because everyone wants to get to work on time. Gutters bubbling shiny, black bubbles line the road on one side. Cars of all colours and shapes are perennially hugging each other in fervour. Everyone is horn-happy because horns don't consume petrol and a little bit of music is always appreciated. You can cross the road easily because traffic barely moves. Dead rats decorate the periphery of the road, adding greys and reds to the green and brown muck. It's a beautiful place... if you've been through hell!

Now, all lotuses grow in mud, and obeying this basic rule of Nature, was a lotus, I found on drab, rainy day.

"Eh, chal, Pandit, lunch!" cried Ganesh, our Poor Jokes Annonymous Grandmaster. We had a club in the office called the 'P.J. Annonymous' and Ganesh was our founder. I was a junior in the club, chosen by the Grandmaster himself! It was an honour I would cherish all my life. Anyway...
lunch was on the cards and I put my computer to sleep promptly. I wandered all over the shop-floor looking for some lunch-company.
"Nahi, I have work."
"You go ahead."
"I'll just finish this mail and I'll finish 5 more and..."
"You haven't had your's yet??"
It's raining weight-watchers or what?! I was frustrated. I walked into the lobby and pressed my cold nose onto the window. It was raining heavily outside. Mahakali Caves road was empty. Everyone was in office. I didn't feel like having cafetaria food. I was miserable. Ganesh tapped me on my head.
"Oye Junior! No lunch? Heartbreak?"
"Appetite-break." I replied, forlorn.
"Wassamatta?"
"I'm fed up of the cafetaria food."
"Ahh! I had this disease once, when I was very young here." My eyes widened in awe. So brave he was, our Grandmaster! What courage to talk of this disease as if it was just a common loss of appetite! "But it's not fatal."
"It's not?" I was awestruck by the courage of this man.
"It's not." He replied solemnly, as if declaring an ordinance. "I have a cure for you, but only for you, because you are a talented pup, the future of P.J. Annonymous. And as Grandmaster, it is my duty to nurture you for your greater goals." It was like resurrection. His words fell like manna from the heavens. The master had chosen to aid me personally! I joined my palms in reverence and replied, "Chalo phir, Sir! What you gonna feed me?"
""Follow me, young one!" he started towards the elevator. I followed happily, like a cub follows it's mother.

The elevator took us to the ground floor and Ganesh stepped out into the lobby.
"Hereon, you will follow me closely. Watch your step. And keep an eye open for prowlers. We don't want a crowd there."
All my senses automatically went on high alert! The Grandmaster scurried up the lobby steps to the main door and pushed it open. White light flooded into the artificially lit lobby. He slipped outside and the light closed out behind him. Sounds of pouring rain drifted into the lobby. It sounded like many trucks were racing each other. I obediently followed the Grandmaster outside. Brilliant, white light blinded me for a moment. But when my eyes adjusted themselves, I could see the One holding an umbrella over his head, motioning me to follow. I pulled the hood of my jacket tightly around my face and ran after him. Water splashed all around me but I continued with whatever courage I could muster.

He walked outside the TKP premises with long, brisks strides and crossed Mahakali Caves road. I stood on the TKP side wondering where the food was. "Quickly, we haven't a moment to lose!" he yelled from the other side. I ran across the wet road.

When I reached the other side, Ganesh was standing with a proud grin on his face, as if he had won a Gold in the Olympics.
"Where's the food?" I implored. He silently stretched his left arm out and pointed to something in the obscurity. I peered hard. And then, my eyes caught sight of a figure bending over a something in concentration. Was it... fire? It WAS! It was FIRE!! I plodded laboriously towards the fire, the rain and wind slashing my face in protest. The scene cleared. It was a man. Tiny framed, bony old man slouching over a stove on a wooden cart. He was mixing cheese with tomatoes and capsicum. I watched him in awe. Ganesh arrived beside me and announced, "Bhaiyya do Chicago! Aaj humari bacchi ko bhook lagi hai!" (Two Chicagos, my man! This child is hungry today!) The man grinned a toothless smile and pulled out six slices of white bread from a drawer beneath the cart. Sandwich!!! The famous Mumbai sandwiches! I'd heard so much about those!
As if reading my mind, Ganesh replied, "They're our Mumbai roadside SANDWITCHES! Wicked, in'nt!" I laughed as the Sandwich-walla slapped his concoction onto the slices. I warmed my hands by his stove while he grilled the tripple-decker whopper of a Chicago. Rain poured all around me as if in triumph! He cut the sandwich on a paper plate and slapped three sauces on it and gratted two cubes of cheese over it. My eyes widened for a second time in the day. He handed the paper plate to me and I just stared at it.
"Dig in, Junior!" grinned Ganesh.

No wonder the lotus is the naional flower of our country. The best things in life come when the most mud is around us! In'nt?

"Heyyy!! Its the Biscuit-valli didi!!!!"

My first salary came on 30 June, 2006. It was supposed to be credited to my account on the last Friday of every month. And when I punched in my PIN at the ATM machine on Saturday morning, sure as ever, there it was! Numbers in place of Aryabhattas contribution. I never thought I'd love the ancient Arab traders so much for spreading the number system around!
I felt nervous as I pressed 'Withdraw'. A blank screen appeared, that very politely said, "Please key in amount."
I punched in 1-0-0. Suddenly, the ATM machine came to life. Funny sounds started coming from within it. And then... 'pfft'... half of a brand new hundred rupee note stuck itself out of a slot below the screen. Looked like the machine was sticking its tongue out in jest.
I pulled out the note and gazed at it. Angels began to sing. And the crisp, green-grey note shone in my fingers.

"Ma'am, may I come in please, only have to put in a cheque..."

"... uh.... huh?"
I let the chap in and then proceeded to draw out a bit more cash for the month.

When I left the ATM booth, I only wanted to celebrate. I was consumed by the thought. I had to celebrate my first salary... anyhow. I called up a few friends and mooted the idea.
"Abbe saade-nau baje koi phone karta hai kya?? So ja!!"
"Aaj nahi yaar, meri girlfriend ke saath shopping ko jana hai."
"Salary me kya badi baat hai? Tu Pune gayi nahi kya abhi tak?"
"Haan jaenge haan, shaam ko dekhte hain."
"Kal batati toh kuch ho sakta tha..."

Yeesh! Everyone has a life and I have a salary! So now what?

I trudged back into Greenfields Society. Thats where I was was staying, in a small flat with two other girls. Both had gone off in the morning to their parent's. I had to go visit my aunt today. But I wanted to celebrate first! And nobody was free. What drab luck!

I went into the garden of the society and flopped on a park bench. I looked at my wallet. A corner of the hundred rupee note was sticking out a bit. I pulled out the note, held it up and sighed.
Just then, I saw a heap of beige fur behind the note. A dog. Dirty old mongrel, actually, and it was staring at me with, brown eyes. I looked back at it.
"What you want?" I asked. It just kept looking. "Go home, man. Dun bother me."
It just kept looking. "Arre jaa na yaar!". But it still kept looking.
"Did anybody ever tell you you're wierd?" It kept looking. I sighed.
"Alright, atleast you're better than the others. You dun have a girlfriend to take out shopping." It looked intently. Probably it found me amusing. I mean, I'm sure a talking human is funny. For street dogs, talking humans are a rare sight.

"Do you want to eat something?" It kept looking. Damn! Was I looking so funny??
"You look hungry.... Chal!" I said, finally, "Chal, we'll buy you some bicuits."
I got up and started walking towards a general store in the society. The dog followed obediently.

I bought a packet of Sunfeast glucose biscuits (cause it was a big one for four rupees) and tore it open. The dog's big brown eyes widened. Then it got restless and started wagging its tail so hard, I could only see a whir of beige.
"Ok dude! So you're hungry! Here you go." I put a few biscuits in front of it. It barked and gobbled them up. And then it looked back up at me and barked again.
"What? You want more?" It started barking and jumping all around me in excitement.

A few other dogs lying in the corners of the building woke up. And before I knew it, I had about seven or eight dogs jumping all around me woofing away to glory!

"So everybodys hungry!" I couldn't possibly put biscuits down before a pack of jumping mongrels. So I took out a biscuit and I flipped it up into the air. And woah... suddenly... a pair of flapping ears and a nose jumped up after the biscuit and caught it!
"Wo.. oh.. oh.. ho!" I cried. "Ok! If that's your order...". I flipped another one. And it was caught too!
A flock of children saw some springing dogs around a girl with a packet of biscuits and came running to see the show!

My packet of biscuits was over by then, but the dogs weren't tired. And I was enjoying myself.
I went to the general store again and slapped the hundred rupee note on the counter.
"Sunfeast." I said.
"Kitna mai-dum?"
"Dus." The store keeper had seen me feeding the dogs. He smiled and put 10 packets onto the counter along with some change.

And children squealed in delight as more dogs started springing up and down catching flying biscuits, all around a girl with packet of biscuits!

Half an hour passed before the dogs and children tired themselves out. And by then, I'd already bought 22 packets of Sunfeast!

"Will you make the dogs dance tomorrow too?" a little thing asked me.
"Uh.... ".
"Haan biscuit-valli didi, will you make the dogs dance tomorrow also?"
"Uh...". Wow, either these children were starved for entertainment or I had established myself as a regular circus clown!

"Haan..." I smiled, "Ok."
The children ran off to play, screaming and laughing. The dogs came around me and settled down. Some of them yawned and stretched.

The dog with the big, brown eyes nosed at my foot and wagged its tail. I patted its head.
"Thanks for the party, dude." I said to it.

It settled down at my feet and fell asleep.

The Untoward Incident

(Please scroll down to the very end and start reading from the last blog if you want to make any sense of what I'm writing. Inconvenience deeply regretted!!)

The rain had become a constant companion. And I liked the rain very much because when it rained too much I could take an off from work. I could afford to take offs since I was new to the job and hardly had any responsibilities. Life was wet and beautiful.


It was the 6th of July, 2006.
I must include here that the 5th of July, 2006 was a significant day for us grads. We had succesfully completed one month in the corporate office and still had smiles on our faces and no dark circles under our eyes (mission impossible). My Borivali friend who had come to say at our little flat (cause the highway was water-logged and she couldn't go back home- ref. previous blog), my room-mates and I had celebrated by going out for lunch in the downpour.

Now that she had gone back to Borivali, and Office had an off (yippee), there were just 4 of us left for each other.


We thought since we had an off, we should settle all pending chores. The most important being, filling gas in the cooking cylinder. You know, one of those portable ones that have a stove over the cylinder.

Three out of the four of us set out with the empty cylinder towards the market.

To get to the market, we had to walk by the Andheri-Vikhroli Link road. Thats a huge two laned highway and usually a busy one during peak hours. Today, at 11 a.m., there weren't too many cars. Just lots of water.


It was drizzling so we had our jackets and umbrellas. I looked the funniest though. I had my trousers rolled up and a baggy jacket on me. In my left hand I held the empty cylinder and the right one had the umbrella. But the cylinder was bulky and awkward, so, I wasn't too sure whether I should have held it in the other hand. So I kept switching the cylinder from one hand to the other. The umbrella kept wobbling above my head. So my glasses got little spots of rain water on them. So now I couldn't see too clearly.


One of the more feminine of my roomies began chattering with the depressed one about some chap she met at the NDA Ball. Undulating voices kept falling on my ears occasionally, but my concentration was on the awkward cylinder.


Lost in their conversation, the two girls walked ahead while I ambled behind, still unable to decide which hand should get to hold the cylinder.


Suddenly, while fumbling, I walked straight into my roomie!

"Watch it!!" I yelled irritatingly. The umbrella wobbled dangerously above my head.

But my roomie didn't respond. I followed her gaze. Squinting through the water spots on my glasses, I saw a white Alto, racing at top speed towards us from the distance.


He kept switching lanes like a snake, except he was too fast.

As he reached a break in the road divider near us, an old Esteem turned into our side of the highway for a U-turn.


The rest was a blur.


The two cars rammed into each other with such velocity, that, the Alto swung out from the left lane and started spinning towards us. The depressed one froze in her tracks. The feminine one and I began to run backwards, eyes still gaping open at the spinning Alto. Before we could react properly, the Alto spun into a row of rickshaws! Two rickshaws toppled over into the ditch by the road side. But the impact set off all the other rickshaws into motion! The third rickshaw hit the fourth, the fourth smashed into the fifth and .... HOLY F***.... !!!!!!


The fifth rickshaw was where the feminine one and I had reached in our retreat! And for that fraction of a second, I cursed myself for running. The fifth rickshaw ran over the feminine ones foot and crashed straight into my right forearm... which was now holding the cylinder.


The Alto spun to a screeching halt. The rickshaws stopped trembling. I stopped trembling. Suddenly, there was pin-drop silence. Nothing stirred...

"Yeeeeeaaaaaooooowwww!!!" the feminine one decided to break the silence. "Maaaaaaaayyyyyy toooooooeeeeeeeee........!!!!"
Her toe? What?
Tapri wallas and rickshaw wallas came a-runnin.
"Kya hua mai-dum? (What's wrong ma'am?)" a vada-walla asked her.
"Mera toe bleed ho raha hai! (My toe is bleeding)" she cried.
I looked at her toe. It had a bright red speck gathering on the surface.
"Aap log hospital chale jao mai-dum. Kuch toota hoga to baandh denge na voh."
(You ought to go the Hospital ma'am. If anything's broken, they'll fix it up)
I didn't want to go to hospital for God's sake! Nothing was wrong. I didn't feel anything.

"Arre! Yeh mai-dum ke haath se cylinder nikaalo koi!" somebody yelled.
Suddenly, everybody ambushed me from all sides and started tugging at my cylinder.
"Chor! Chor! (Thief)" I started yelling.
"Chor nahi mai-dum, cylinder de do. Aapka haath theek hai na? (Not a thief ma'am. Is your hand alright?)" A policeman asked.

I looked at my arm for the first time. It felt alright. Actually, I felt nothing. The cylinder was still hanging from my fingers. "Theek hai. (Its ok)" I replied.

"Toot gaya hai lagta hai (I think it's broken)!" Someone said.
"Of course it's not broken! I'm alright!" I said vehemently. Last thing I wanted was a plaster.

The policemen went to the Alto owner, who now stepped out of his car with a huge cell phone at his ear.
"Kuch nahi kuch nahi!" he bellowed into the phone. "Everyone is alive."
'ALIVE??' I thought.

"I'll talk to the police and see if I can settle it." he said and cut the phone.

His car was smashed from the side. The front wheel had twisted out of its place. The headlights were shattered and the door had broken off.
The Esteem's bonnet had crumpled up. The Esteem owner was fuming. I thought I saw smoke coming out of his ears. The police called for a tow-van for the two cars and took the whole scene to the police station.

Well, luckily, I hadn't broken anything. We went ahead to the market and finished our chores as planned. Funniest thing was, the depressed one escaped it all, simply because she didn't react!

For the next 3 days, I was sporting a swollen, black n blue forearm.

Dekho baarish ho rahi hai.. Its raining, its raining, its raaaaaaaiiiiiiininnnnnnng!!!

Bombay rains are so famous. If I write anything about the rains it'll be a 'seen it-heard about it' kind of thing. It's started raining in Pune and I miss the Bombay rains.. so I'm going to write about them anyway!

When we were staying at the hotel (that was sometime in June last year), I enjoyed the rains. You see, the window of the hotel room had a ledge outside it, that, was wide enough for a person to sit on (provided your legs were dangling off it).
So every evening, when it would start to rain, my hotel mates and I would dangle our legs off the ledge and look at cars passing by on the flyover yonder. He he... yonder matlab... must have been some 600-700 metres away.
The rain would wet our feet and the breeze on the 3rd floor was just mind blowing (not literally).

By the time we had shifted out of the hotel into our tiny flat, the rains had gotten worse.

It's just like in the movies. One minute you're walking dry, the next minute you're soaking wet! I remember, one Friday, a friend of mine and I were walking to a bus stop on the highway nearby. We had to go to Borivali. And while walking, I felt a drop on my face. My friend felt a drop or two as well. Then we were wet.
There's no point in carrying an umbrella. By the time you've opened it the rain's done its job!

At office, everybody used to talk about 26th July. The day when Bombay got flooded with rain water so bad, thousands of people died. Everyone talked about it like it was the Holocaust or something. I guess they're justified. The stories about people flowing away, children drowning before their parents, electrocutions...
And people at office talked about how, inspite of the adversity, everyone managed to complete deadlines and deliveries as scheduled.

This July, it started flooding again.
Everyday News channels used to telecast gory stories about water levels rising and roads being closed down. And News channels like to put an ounce of mirch-masala to the story na, so my parents went crazy.
"You come back home! Why you have to go to office?" Mumma used to keep yelling over the phone. I never listened anyway.
"Ata meech tithe yete!! (Now I'll only come there!!)"
Arre baap-re!!!
"Nako!!!! Please ithe yeu nako! (DONT come here!)"
"Ka?? Ka nahi yeycha? (Why cant I come?)"
"Are you can't swim nah! How will you reach my place?"
That would quieten her down a bit. But only a bit. Next day she'd call again.

My dad was a little calmer. He told me to buy a bottle of Dettol and some Crocin. You see the rains are likely to carry water-borne diseases with it. And these can affect your feet if you're lucky! So it's always better to keep disinfectants.
He he, the most innovative thing he told me was, "Buy a bottle of aftershave."
"Haan???"
"Aftershave is a good disinfectant. Everytime you get your feet wet, come home and put aftershave on your feet. It'll keep them from getting sore."
To tell you it actually worked! Where people were complaining about smelly feet and cracks, my feet smelled amazing! And they stayed soft throughout the monsoon! Awesome!

Once, the water levels rose waist-high on the highway near Marol. A friend of mine had to walk in waist-high water to get to office.
And the guy strolled in happily onto the carpetted floor of the office, wet shoes, drenched shirt and all!
That evening, another friend of mine couldn't go back home to Borivali. So she came to stay with us for a night. There were 5 of us in the flat now and having a blast!
Next day, it was still raining. So she couldn't go home.

The 5 of us had lunch at a restaurant nearby. Water here was only ankle deep, so we could walk.
After lunch, when we stepped out in the rain, I felt so good I wanted to go for a walk in the rain. Everyone shot the idea down with a rifle ofcourse... But my Borivali friend thought I was a genius!!!

Luck is wonderful, because I found a small park opposite the restaurant that made my eyes sparkle! So my friend and I went to the park for a walk in the rain and the others went home thinking we had lost it.

I'll tell you something honestly... there's nothing like losing it once in a while.

It was a walk to remember...

Shelter at last...

When classroom training ended 2 weeks later, we went onto hands on training. We were allotted to temporary teams to see how people work, what the work environment is like, what the general attitude across the floor is...

We went through the hands-on for a week or so, after which there was a combination of classroom and hands-on. I felt like I was back in college doing practicals.

But there were bigger matters to worry about. Our 3 weeks at the hotel were nearly up and we still didn't have a place to live. We'd been roaming around in the vicinity of the office for a few days, but nothing fit the bill. It's like they say, if you're meant to get something, you'll get alright, but only at the time you're supposed to. No matter how hard you try before that, you just wont get it.
After numerous afternoons travelling from one corner of Andheri to another, we finally got a flat. And how!
An uncle of one of the girls I was staying with at the hotel, practically handed it to us on a platter. And we loved it! It was a decent place... more importantly... the money and the location were perfect.

When we finalised it, only two of us were supposed to live in it. But a few days after getting possession, suddenly, there were four!
Bombay is all about adjusting, they say. So we adjusted.

Office and flat became a new world for me, and very soon, flat became home. Initially, we had a congenial atmosphere in the flat. In the coming months, that changed.

For the first time in my life, I learnt how difficult it is to live with three other people, who are nothing, even remotely, like you. I wasn't used to this sort of living. They had some experience of hostels and PGs. Inspite of the experience, things started to darken between us.

The fun we'd had at the hotel, stopped. One misunderstanding led to another. One was too sensitive, the other too blatant, another, too depressed, and another, too idealistic. But none willing to see from the other's point of view. Things began to crumble.

And I just wanted to go back home.

The Hair Story

Mumbai guys have this thing about hair. I guess all guys have this thing about hair. But Mumbai is on a completely different level.

During the training, each guy had a different hair style. Our Pune guy had a decent crew-cut. Nothing much to harp about.
And then there was the two medium sized guys... one with straight hair twirling around his skull, starting from the top. It looked like a little tornado. The other one had curls sticking out over his ears. A regular Goldilocks without gold locks.
Then the tall guy who had brokers numbers had heavily gelled strands combed down over his forehead, like a skull-cap. Reminded me of Frankenstein. The girls used to call him Franky the Jellyfish. That was only until he told us it wasn't gell. It was Parachute Coconut hair oil. Then, we didn't call him anything.

But the other tall guy took the cake. I had never seen hair like this on a guy before (comming from little Pune, we hardly had any variety, you see)!
His hair fell down to his shoulders from a parting in the centre and then it did the darnest thing.
It curled up and pointed to the sky!!!!
There were actually, two 'S's on either side of his head and they looked like the 'S's one would find on some rosy-cheeked girl in Fairy tales! Worse was, that when he strode across the corridor in full splendor, his curls bobbed up and down. So the girls were thrilled and christened him 'Bobby'.

On the last day of training, we got certificates from the V.P. of the department we were going to. And while giving Bobby's certificate, he said "I like your hair style." to the fellow!
And our Bobby looked at the V.P.'s balding patch and stopped himself from blurting out, "I like yours too."!!! But that day, he tells us, he decided to get a new 'look'.

I thought I had seen everything!

A week after we got into the department, all the guys went on a hair trimming spree. Our Pune guy got a fresh Crew-cut, Franky got his oiled strands trimmed and glued to his forehead and the tornado guy got himself a simple short cut.
Our Bobby surprised us though. He got himself a mind-blowing wind-swept look that suddenly made him look taller. And handsome even! Technology, vision and money can do wonders!

But Goldilocks without the gold locks, now he renewed my faith in Fate. Just when I'd thought I'd seen everything, Fate slapped my eyes with a sight to behold (and then faint).
The curls were gone from above his ears. He had joined the Oil brigade. All his hair was oiled back neatly behind his ears, except two thin wisps of shiny black locks glued onto the forehead in the shape of and UPSIDE-DOWN HEART!!!!!

"Make way for the King of Spades!" I hissed.

Then we went house-hunting.

Speaking of last day of training, I almost forgot to tell you that it had been two weeks since we'd come to Bombay. We still hadn't found a place to stay.
And my extended family had made a mountain out of it! More so because my parents were away, visiting a very sick relative in London, while 'the poor, ignorant child is in Bombay all alone with nowhere to go to!!'

Now you see, training sessions were good fun. They reminded me of the Great Divide. Bombay Boys sat on the left side of the class and the Pune and Mulund Girls occupied the right. One chap who had come with us from Pune had managed to mingle with the Bombay chaps and had decided to renounce the Pune Club (since it was filled with girls anyway).

The Mulund girls were of not much help when it came to house-hunting. They didn't even have broker's numbers. Now I am not much of a Boy-watcher, really, but the adversity of the situation compelled me to observe the poor lads.

Hmm... two tall ones, two about 5.7, and our Puneite who rose up to 5.5. Not too sharp. Among them all, I'd say the Pune fellow was, by far, the best looking. But looks were not the criteria, were they?

Once, over coffee, one of the tall chaps came over to have a chat with the girls. Hmm.. he wasn't so bad. Looked a little brighter from near. My friend kept nudging me to go ahead and pop the question.

Abbe shaadi ke liye thodihi poochna tha!!

"By the way," I asked, "We're in a bit of a spot you see, we haven't found a place to live yet. Would you be having any brokers numbers?"
"Sure!" he said, "My friends might know some numbers, I'll message them to you tonight."

'That was quick service,' I thought, 'We'll get numbers soon.'


That evening, I went to spend the weekend with my aunt in Borivali. Sometime after dinner, my grandmother called up to find out if I was still standing.
"Child! Are you alright? Is Bombay too hot? What are you doing this weekend? Did you find a flat yet? PG atleast? My poor child all alone in the big city like Bombay!!"
I prayed to the Gods to calm her down.

"Dont worry Aaji," I told her, "A handsome young fellow is looking for a house for me here."

I don't know what happened next actually. I heard a small cry on the other end, then someone dropped the phone. My aunt, of course, was a bit more understanding. She didn't cry or drop phones. She called up my Mother, in London!

My weekend was well spent attending calls from half way across the State and the globe. My family was in shattered because everyone thought I was eloping with a young chap. My mother wanted to catch the next flight home. My sister was excited thinking I had finally got myself a boyfriend. My father had gone hysterical thinking of the figures the telephone bill would have this month.

And all the time, the only thought that bothered me was how breathless the poor fellow must have become with all those hiccups!