Chapter 21: A Brief History of Tanks
This historical incident happened in Delhi. The gang had taken a trip to Delhi, where Seher and Anuj had promised to treat them to the best of the city’s food and nightlife. Seher, of course, insisted that Delhi’s night life isn’t in the clubs. “It is all over. It is in jumping the gates of ASI protected monuments and finding places to get drunk, stoned and make out. It is driving to the outskirts, having a carobar and finding a dhaba to eat at.” Anuj shot her for being a Delhi snob. She fell backwards while the gang scrolled through listings sites on their phones. Even before her 30 seconds were up, Veena shook her awake. “Why do you have a hockey stick with metal plates nailed to its hitting end in your car?” Seher just shrugged.
Later at a “club” in GK-1, the gang got this close to ending up in a bar brawl with a couple of slabs of beef in Ed Hardy t-shirts and straightened hair. Being himself, when Anand was pushed, he pushed back. That pushing back had led to the slabs of beef noticing the girls Anand was with. They did not see Anuj and Kartik sitting there as well. So they tried to power-talk⁴⁸ to the girls when Anand had gotten up to stand between them and the girls. Kartik stood behind Anand. Seher had given Anuj the eye so he did not. Seher’s logic was simple. “This is Delhi, you never know who ends up being whose son.”
Seher looked at Veena who held Anand’s wrist and pulled him down. Kartik sat down too. Anuj headed out for a smoke. Niyati joined him and the rest stayed there to see the rabbit Seher was about to pull out of a hat. Seher proceeded to give the beefy boys a dimpled smile, blinding them by sleight⁴⁹ first. “Sandra.” She said when asked for a name. “Sandra Singh. And here’s my number.” The ripped-as-fuck dude called that number immediately to check. Sandra pulled out a plastic phone, which bled a polyphonic ringtone. She showed him his own number on the tiny screen. “I’ll call you once I drop my friends off at the airport.” The gang never knew Seher had a phone like that. He smiled victoriously running a hand over her cheek. She resisted flinching away so hard that it made Veena close her eyes.
About fifteen minutes later, when the gang was in the parking lot outside the club, Veena asked Seher, “Where did that phone come from?”
“Memorize this.” Seher showed the stud’s phone number to Anand before she slid the back panel open, pulled the SIM out and chucked it. Then she pulled her own phone out. “Repeat that number.” She logged onto her fake ‘tease’ account and tweeted that number to the internet, telling everyone how this guy had tried to feel her up as her smile-less face slowly broke into a wicked grin. Needless to say that the internet loved such tip-offs and the stud’s phone did not stop buzzing till he had to throw his own SIM to get a new one.
— “I always keep a spare prepaid card. Just like that hockey stick in the back. Although, I wouldn’t have had to waste this SIM if Andha Kanoon here had not gotten aggressive.”
— “I can’t think of a scenario.”
— “I don’t know but I trust my instinct in such cases. Think of me like you think of Hanuman. When my tail’s on fire, I end up making sure that Lanka is burning.”
— “Why Sandra?” Kartik had been hung up on the fake name. “Least plausible fake name ever.”
— “Sandra from Bandra, lundfakir.”
That night Veena had made Anand swear over a plate of ‘Seksy Chicken’ that he would never enter a fight. Anand had smiled with his mouth full, “I will never voluntarily enter a fight.”
Seher had just returned with another plate from the self-service counter. She put the plate down and ruffled his hair and impersonated him. “Aawullnttrrilynteright.”
⁴⁸ According to Actorography, power talking is when you’re flexing your muscles, literally or figuratively, when talking to someone in order to overpower their thinking process by sheer physical presence.
⁴⁹ Actorography says, when someone so desperately wanted something they were going to be blinded by it, emotionally and literally. After which, they could be fooled into believing they owned exactly that. Like how when a job interview ends with a handshake, the candidate leaves with the hope that he or she has gotten the job.
