Ssshhhh... It's Her !

Initially when I arrived in Bangalore to start a career, I stayed at a hostel in J. P. Nagar 6th phase. Life was pretty hard for me that time. The food was so much expensive and I had to plan a bit in order to have managed my breakfast, lunch and dinner. That time I just wished if I could have stayed at an independent house, so that we could have cooked our own food. But, "Uff Ye Bangalore!" One need to pay 10 months rent in advance in the name of security deposit to rent a house. After a couple of months, few more of my close friends decided to come to Bangalore. Well, the market was slowly recovering from the recession phase that time. 

Mukha already arrived and stayed with me for a couple of days at the hostel. Dhiru and Lami were about to come within next few days. Mukha had some friends in Bangalore and somehow he had information about a house and the landlord was ready for merely 2 months advance as security deposit. Without wasting anytime we both went to have a look at the house and immediately booked it by paying some token amount. But there was a minor problem though. The landlord seemed to be very strict and he clearly said to us that maximum 3 guys could have stayed in his house. Well, we were 4 of us and I believed that to be a very minor issue, as the landlord used to stay quite far from there and I thought to sort it out later. It was a one BHK house at a place named R. T. Nagar, in northern part of Bangalore. It’s a fascinating place and the ill effects of IT were not pretty much visible out there those days. Prices of most of the things were much reasonable and particularly chicken, as compared to other main parts of Bangalore. I still remember how we used to have chicken on a regular basis, as the cost of vegetables seemed to almost the same or in fact, could have been a little more.

Life was much better after we shifted to that house and also our tummies/tongue were kind of  satisfied. We had such a great opportunity of reunion of old buddies and really enjoyed some good time. On few occasions our landlord thrilled us with his surprise visits and on every such occasion, Lami used to hide himself inside the washroom. Actually Lami never existed for the landlord and the remaining guys had to submit our Photo IDs to him. I remember one incident when Lami had to remain locked in the washroom for almost an hour. On that particular day, the landlord seemed to be under some kind of serious Fevicol(Well known adhesive brand) effect, as he remain attached to that chair for so long. We simply wondered "What if he would have wanted to use the washroom?" Time passed by and after about a month we made some good friends nearby. They were also "Bekaar" jobless engineers like us and looked for opportunities. They also used to stay in a group and Particularly, Kamal and Debo became quite close to us. Sometimes we used to enjoy lunch/dinner together and not to mention about our love and respect for the Old Monk.

Their house was at a market kind of place, just beside the busy street. One afternoon after lunch, we visited them and were enjoying a cool and relaxing gossip session. Everyone was on the bed and seated close by. The room was alive with those careless talks and laughter. All of a sudden there was a BANG on the main door. What the hell was that? It almost felt that as if someone wanted to break the door. There was complete silence inside the room, as if someone pressed the mute button. One rough and tough looking, and quite daring kind of middle aged lady entered the house. She didn’t talk to anyone and came inside the house. We started to stare at each other’s faces out of confusion and after sometime I heard the sound of washroom flush. The lady closed the washroom door with another BANG. No one in the house dared to talk to her and she left the house through the main door like a storm, with yet another BANG. 

I was kind of shocked and asked "Who the hell was she?"

Kamal replied "Ssshhhh... wait. Did she left?"

After a while the room came alive yet again with their laughter and they revealed the mystery. Actually the lady and her husband had a chips stall just below their house on the main street. They used to come in the afternoon and used to prepare/sell chips till 9 PM. About 6 months ago, the chips couple came to them and asked for a small help. It seemed the lady had some form of sugar problem and asked them if she could have used their washroom sometimes? It started that time and somehow became a part and parcel of their daily life. My poor friends didn't even used to lock the main door from inside, as the lady was pretty much unpredictable and could have BANGED the door any moment. They got habituated with those abrupt blasts at their door, daily on an average 4-5 times. On every such occasion, their mute button worked perfectly fine inside the house and someone would usually whisper "Ssshhhh... It's Her !"