Wokay!

I had had a particularly heavy lunch the other day, and needed to settle my stomach. I went over to Residency Road for a paan. To my surprise, I found that my old friend Akshay the Jhakaas Paanwala had set up a paan stall there.

‘What are you doing in Bangalore?’ I asked. ‘I thought you ran everything out of Delhi.’

‘I want to stay south of the Vindhyas for a while,’ he said. ‘It’s safer for me to monitor the situation from outside North India for now. I’m dealing with ruthless people.’

I gasped. ‘What situation?’

‘The Babubhai Katara situation,’ said Akshay, rolling out a meethaa without supaari. ‘It’s best for me to lay low until I know my life is no longer under threat.’

‘The Babubhai Katara situation is endangering your life?’ I asked incredulously. ‘But how? And why?’

He looked at me angrily. ‘It’s a conspiracy, you fool. And the people behind it won’t have any compunctions about killing anybody who gets too close to the truth.’

‘But who’s behind it?’

‘They are.’

‘Not them?!’

‘Yes, them. I know that they’re behind it. They know I know. But they don’t know how much I know or can prove, and so it’s not worth their while to hunt me down. So I’m staying in Bangalore and letting my more discreet operatives monitor them.’

‘But do you know why they did it?’

‘Have another paan,’ said Akshay. ‘I’ll give you all the details.’

I handed over thirty rupees, and he got to work preparing his secret mixture, talking in a low undertone all the while.

‘It’s so obvious that the whole human trafficking angle to the story is a hoax,’ said Akshay. ‘They orchestrated it very carefully to make it look like Babubhai was up to far worse than just going off to London with his girlfriend. But honestly, when you examine the evidence carefully, the human trafficking just doesn’t fit.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s inconceivable that a BJP MP from Gujjuland could sink to human trafficking.’

‘Gujju MPs are hardly paragons of virtue. Why wouldn’t they sink to human trafficking?’

‘That’s my whole point, you moron. Gujju MPs would consider trafficking beneath their dignity. It’s for the small fry like municipal councillors. They concern themselves with the more important stuff like murders and pogromming.’

‘You have a point there,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘So according to you Babubhai was innocent and is being framed?’

‘Obviously. They are trying to obscure the true significance of Babubhai’s journey behind a smokescreen of lies.’

‘But what is the true significance?’

‘It’s staring you in the face,’ said Akshay. ‘Didn’t you notice the most remarkable thing about the whole affair?’

‘What was it?’

‘That Babubhai was traveling with only two other people.’

‘That’s remarkable?’

‘Of course it is, idiot. When was the last time you ever saw a Gujju traveling with only two other people. Normally they move in battalions. Especially when they’re going abroad.’

‘You have a point there,’ I said thoughtfully, remembering the time I had stepped into a restroom at Changi Airport only to discover that it had been colonised by a party of twenty Gujjus. ‘But what is it to them if Babubhai breaks the Gujju mould.’

‘What do you mean, what is it to them? Their whole agenda depends on preserving Gujju culture as it is. Babubhai is nothing less than a hero for breaking free of two thousand years of Gujju tradition. What he started might have become an epidemic. They couldn’t tolerate it.’

‘But why?’

‘Do I have to spell everything out? What Babubhai started yesterday, two Gujjus might continue today. If it kept on, eventually all of Gujjuland might have been holidaying without their extended family. The Gujju joint family would break down. The market for Ekta Kapoor soaps would wither away and die, and their insidious hold on us through mind-liquefying TV programming would be shattered. No wonder they couldn’t tolerate it.’

‘And they smeared Babubhai just for that reason?’

‘Obviously. They had to make it look as if the only reason a Gujju would travel without twenty other Gujjus was to commit a criminal act.’

I drew my breath in, shocked at the extent of the conspiracy. ‘So what are you going to do about it?’

‘Nothing,’ said Akshay grimly. ‘Their hold on the media is too strong. They’ve already spun the story beyond the point where nobody will ever believe the truth.’

‘I believe the truth.’

‘You don’t count. All we can do now is hope. Hope that someday, soon, another Gujju will go abroad with just a couple of close friends. And that he slips under their radar. And that more Gujjus will follow, and that they lose their stranglehold on our culture.’

‘I do hope.’

‘Good stuff,’ said Akshay. ‘Now pay for the damn paan.’