I have an opinion that the closest friends you make are the ones with whom you have spent your early twenties. That would roughly be from 18 to 25 years. The reason that happens is because that’s when a person starts to construct his own raison d’être or if not, at least constructs the axioms and principles that will form the basis.
Parth Sarathi, a friend from my college days, called me up last Friday. The last time I met him was at Camp Linger (where we did nothing). It was the same group. Well, almost. We were joined by another of our batchmates this time, Manu Pratap.
It was not exactly a coincidence that majority of us were not married. Most of my batchmates are figuratively waiting to play with their grandchildren.
I had no clue where Parth’s house was or if I could have kept my cycle. So I rode to Nandy’s house, parked the bike and booked a cab. Parth surely lives outside the limits of the city. Most of the food delivery apps don’t service that area of the city.
This is the Hiranandani tower, stone’s throw away from Parth’s house. High stakes, high rise buildings in a village!
Parth made some pretty good lemon tea. It reminded me of the stuff we used to get on Kharagpur-Howrah local trains.
This one is definitely better than the local train ones. He could have sold this in the apartment. Manu mentioned that there is some app that facilitates that.
We walked a few hundred meters to Hurimavu-Begur road and went to a small shop that made Litti Chokha. By the time we sat down, it started pouring pretty heavily.
That’s the chaat station. You can see out the rain falling on the streets and ghosting the glass panels of the station.
These were above average littis. I would definitely recommend these in case you are in this area of Bangalore (Nah! I refuse to call that Bangalore).
I wanted to photograph the charcoal grill on which the littis are baked but they had no littis on that. We also had some chaats and starters for our evening snacks.
Since we couldn’t go out in the rain, we ordered some jalebis and tea. These jalebis were okay. The tea was horrible. Guys abandoned their drinks halfway but I finished it nonetheless. I have a philosophy – ‘Chai ko mana nahin karte.’
Rain had made things pretty bad. Mogit was waiting at Parth’s apartment. We were wading through mud and water. Nandy soaked and dirtied his loafers. We were still waiting for Munda and Chandan. They were stuck in the Saturday jam of Bangalore. Eventually they arrived.
From left to right: Chandan, Nandy, Shashi Mohan (standing), Parth Sarathi (our host, sitting), me, Manu Pratap (peeking, in striped polo tee), Mogit, Nabakishore Munda.
We had some average biriyanis. We weren’t there for the biriyanis anyways.
I got back to Nandy’s place and crashed for the night before leaving for my house. En route, I had a nasty puncture. A sturdy nail had pierced into my rear tyre. I swapped the tube with a stock I usually carry in my saddle bag. A security guard stuck up a conversation with me. He mentioned that his son is an endurance runner and a cyclist. His name is Vijay Kumar. I looked him up but I couldn’t find him. If anyone knows him, please drop a link. Also, tell him that his father is mighty proud of him.
That was the last BTwin patch I had. This repaired tube goes back into my saddle bag.