The Class Tests finally ended defying their promise of making our life a permanent hell. The evening could never look so bright and promising. “I can’t stay back in the hostel hoping from one room to other”, I decided and banged on Piyush’s room. He laid in his bed, half asleep and now cursing me for such infuriating entry. “Get up you idiot, we need to go somewhere”, I shouted as I pulled off his blanket. He could not help but surrender to me. “Yaa, but where?” he asked as he headed to the wash-basin. “Hmm..well..we are going to ...amm....Lanka. My pending list is overflowing with stuffs to do”. s
Actually, when you have nothing to do, you go to Lanka. The place is always jam-packed with people doing just nothing. You can find them strolling from one shop to other buying nothing, peeping futilely into magazines or just overhearing others.
“OK, so what you have to do their?” he said, wilting with every word he spoke. Now, this was a very obvious question which had not crossed my mind till then. ‘Well, I need to...’ I said as I still kept thinking a convincing answer myself, but in vain. I had to come up with something, else that monster would have gone back to his bed.
“I need to fix my guitar”, I almost yelled in excitement as this promising excuse crossed my mind, ”Need to buy strings for that”.
“OK, I need a shave too”, he said as he buttoned his half yellow, half orange shirt. That shirt of his always drove off those ‘that- boy- is- so -good’ looks from girls and I hated it.
Within minutes, we were off on his black Karizma. We headed to Assi (which was just next to Lanka) as the place promised us help for our guitar strings. The bike advanced with a crawl on the busy roads of Lanka which was choked with people, rickshaws and animals of all kind. “Get off you bastard”, Piyush shouted as he made an unavailing attempt to overtake a fat cow which completely ignored him and kept moving as if on an evening walk.
Soon, we found ourselves struggling on the roads of Assi. The roads here were narrower than footpaths at cities. The concept of two way traffic was definitely alien to the construction company which made them. We were moving in whatever space we found between the horde of pedestrians, rickshaws, cattles and of course shops that sprang out of nowhere.
“Where can I find a music instrument shop here?”, I asked a passerby as we stopped beside a pan-shop at the chauraha.
“Well, I think there is one ahead. Just go straight!!”, he answered in a dull voice.
I looked at every shop we passed with my eyes wide open while Piyush struggled with the traffic. ‘I can’t see any guitar shop here’, I declared finally.
“Let us ask someone here”, he said as he stopped the bike.
“You have left the shop back. You must have taken a right from the last chauraha”, announced the old man sitting in the grocery shop while scribbling something on his notepad. I wondered what the last guy actually meant when he asked us to go straight only.
We entered a multiple fractured road as we took a right. The road had gone narrower(if only you could call it a road) and had branching at regular intervals with shops on both sides .
“There is one called Saaz Musical here . I believe you must get there whatever you are looking for. Go straight and take a left. Its somewhere around there”, declared the boy whom we had stopped for help. We were asked to take a few more lefts and rights by all those whom we sought help from ,only to get us back at the chauraha.
“No point in looking any more, let’s go back”, I said dejectedly to Piyush who was already cursing me for bringing him there. We got off the bike and started walking around, only to find a small board of Saaz Musical placed at a corner, almost hidden behind a giant Hrithik drinking Coca Cola. Excitedly, we followed the sign which led us to a narrow dingy pathway with all kinds of electrical shop lined to its sides. All these shops were dim with low hung ceiling, wires and machine parts stacked everywhere in the shop. At the end of the corridor was our destination. Finally, the diligent hunt seemed to have paid off.
A gaunt, greying man with thick spectacles welcomed us. The shop was well furnished and had tablas and sitar arrayed in the corner. “I am looking for 3 no. guitar string. Do you have it?” I asked. He said ‘yes’ and moved to one of the rack. He too made a diligent hunt, just like we did, to find the string. Finally, he came to us and declared,” We are out of that string. Why don’t you come tomorrow? I promise I will arrange it”. Piyush and me looked at each other, with nothing to say. A perfect end to a perfect CT period.
