Off The Cuff: Tripping through the khalli valli years

They meet every Friday. Regular as clockwork. At mid-day. For brunch. For three hours. Brief hours. Brief as a Dubai weekend. Brief as short sentences. There's scrambled eggs. And scrambled thoughts. Toast. Crisp, but fragmenting. Like memories.

There's ketchup. Rich, and red. They choose the ketchup. It's a full-blooded reminder. Of youth. Their youth. Brief, too. But vivid red. There's mayonnaise, as well. They avoid it. Too bland. Too present. It resembles routine. Featureless routine. Routine, the cancer. That slow perishing. Postponed only by brunch. Saved by ketchup. And a thick, well-spread yellow carpet. Daffodil yellow on light earth brown. Egg on toast.

A song is playing. Lloyd Cole's singing Don't Look Back. Ha, ha. Try convincing Sandy and Bijoy. Classmates, Calcuttans. Two men stranded in the twilit thirties. Wanting out. Wanting a glimpse of yesterday. Yesteryear. Brunch is Going-Back-Time. Reliving the years. The care-a-damn years. The carefree years. The rebel years. The khalli valli years. Cole sings on. Life seems never ending when you're young.

Sandy recalls a pre-exam day night. He was with his band. Beating out a personal statement. On the drums. Rolling in the morrow with a dare. Sandy drives a two-door Peugeot. But he'll trade it in. For one tram ride down yesterday. Once more.

Tram rides, says Bijoy. Can he forget them? His pocket was picked once. His school fees filched. By invisible fingers.

He recalls the dread. His father's unheeded advice. Never combine money, pockets and trams, son.

He remembers borrowing the sum. From Pete Lewis, an Anglo-Indian classmate. Borrowing from Pete to pay Paul. St. Paul's, that is. He remembers how he repaid Pete. In instalments. By compromising on cigarettes. Abstaining, actually. For months.

Bijoy no longer smokes. That's one positive derived from a negative. Good things come from pockets picked. Sometimes.

Sandy stretches a denim-clad leg. Bites into a mouthful of toast. Talks through it. I shredded my Levis once, he says. And cut slits in the knees. My mother was in shock for days. The jeans were a birthday present. From her.

Bijoy smirks. He's heard that story. And the rest of it. But he asks, nevertheless. When did you stop wearing them? The jeans, I mean. Aw, don't take me down that road again, Bijoy. Bijoy laughs openly. One incisor is ketchup-coated.

I'll just tell you the ending, says Sandy. I fell off a bike. And grazed my knees. Through the denim slits. Even slit denim can teach. Sometimes.

The hours take wing. And flying with them are two sons. Two sons of West Bengal. Winging their way through Marxism. And the khalli valli years.

Saturday, the week will begin anew. Sandy and Bijoy will reset the mind clock. Life will become another blank sheet. Waiting to be patterned.

But they both know this fact: life is mostly lived forward. That's why Friday brunch is so special.

Despite Lloyd Cole, it's that brief pit stop. In the long, winding race ahead.

A race as complex as a serpentine sentence whose words writhe and coil with such profusion there's no telling subject from object.