‘I’M FUCKING TIRED,’ said Karthik by way of introduction. ‘The brochure never said anything about getting barbecued in the sun as being part of the curriculum. What the fuck is wrong with this place anyways? I thought Bangalore was supposed to have beer weather all year through?!’ added Karthik, airing serious concerns regarding his sources of meteorological information.
But to be fair to him, Karthik wasn’t being very demanding. For him, very few meteorological conditions didn’t qualify as beer weather. Unfortunately, the 
July heat was unprecedented in Bangalore that year, and had made a lot of the people around dressed in cardigans and light pullovers look silly.
‘I think it’s quite pleasant actually. After all these months of hard work in dingy classrooms, I’m sure our bodies would appreciate some fresh air!’ said Usha.
Not being used to hearing statements ending in exclamation marks without any sarcasm in them, Karthik eyed Usha suspiciously. Unfortunately, Usha interpreted this as curiosity, and felt it his responsibility to devote the next ten minutes in explaining how his multi-coloured home-knit pullover – ‘which is actually a parting gift from my grandma, bless her’, and his sun-block protected him from all the elements of nature. He was just about done unleashing the secrets of choosing between an SPF 15 and SPF 20 cream upon us, when the 4th and final member of the quartet joined us.
‘Hi guys’, spoke a voice that was probably last heard by Moses on some hill-top in Israel. Turning back, I almost expected to spot a silver-bearded octogenarian amidst the clouds, with a staff in one hand and a stone tablet tucked under the other arm. What I saw was a 6’3” replica of the sphinx, flicking ash from his cigarette into a nearby flower pot. The beard was completely black, but as the sun shone from behind the monument, it did create a silver outline over the ever-so-slightly balding head.
‘I am K2. How are you doing?’
The face was devoid of any expression. His height, together with the fact that he seemed perpetually to be gazing at a higher truth far, far away, gave him a pseudo wise old man look. Also the way he spoke the sentence in a single, passive tone, as if the words were all hyphenated together, didn’t do much to lend their speaker with too much of a human colour.
‘You-guys-new-here-as-well-I-presume.’
‘Who the fuck uses words like ‘presume’, Karthik demanded to know. ‘And no, all three of us were born here. In fact I grew up under that tree over there. We have ventured out of our hutments to gather firewood today. We also happen to be looking for a 6 ft tall monster to sacrifice to appease the weather gods. Seen one?’
‘Oh, Hi! I’m Usha’, said Usha, and shaded his eyes while tilting his head all the way back to catch a glimpse of our new friend. They then reached out to each other, Usha sticking his hand high up his body, and K2 leaning forward to momentarily recreate an Indianized version of the ‘Creation of Man.’
‘Why don’t both of you sit down?’ said Karthik. ‘Trying to accommodate both of you in my field of vision simultaneously is fucking up my optic nerves.’
‘Unusual weather, isn’t it? You’d expect summers to be lot milder in these parts of the country,’ said K2, and choice of words notwithstanding, earned the right to be tolerated by Karthik a little longer.
It’s often overlooked how a deep voice and how you roll your Rs and spit out your Ts can influence the credibility of your words. The same ‘MUNIRKA VIHAR MEIN UDAN KHATOLA’ news-piece gains instant credibility when Prannoy Roy, with his borrowed stiff-upper lip, informs us about a ‘curious unidentified flying object in South Delhi.’ Shashi Tharoor got elected in 2009 solely on the basis of how he pronounces the word ‘bourgeoisie’. Or Katrina Kaif, for that matter, who’s carved out an entire genre of Indian Cinema where dialogues are read out straight from the Armani fashion catalogue. By corollary, entire careers have been ruined for lack of this faculty. Pranab Mukherjee could have made PM ten years back if only he had figured out a way of making his English sound less like Bengali, and more like English.
God, of course, was fully aware of the potent power of enunciation when he packed off K2 to this world armed with nothing more than this tool. Years later, K2 would realize its full potential when, solely based on a book read widely only by his immediate family, and very popular amongst channa-wallas for its seemingly unending pages, he would carve out a niche career as a regular guest in English news channels where he would analyse issues he was completely unaware of till five minutes ago. Competing with the likes of Suheil Seth and Mahesh Bhatt, K2 would virtually station himself outside the studios of NDTV 24×7, ready to hop in on a minute’s notice to dissect issues like the ‘sociological impact of Swine Flu,’ and ‘reverse-sanskritization of Urban India brought about by the advent of micro-blogging.’ But till then, unfortunately, we were all the audience he had.
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Photograph Courtesy: © Jean-François Bauche
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