The six young men, returning from their weekly football match, bundled
into the dhaba, raucous and belligerent, confident in the interestingness and
hilarity of their conversation. They made their way to an empty table,
consigning their bags unceremoniously to the indignity of the filthy floor.
Their conversation alternated between two extremes, at one point discussing the
degradation of culture and art, and the very next moment, descending into
vulgar barbs aimed at each other almost in mockery of the pretentiousness of
the conversation that just preceded it.
Finally, they fell silent long enough for the group to hear the collective
rumblings of their stomachs, and Nouman was assigned the task of ordering the
food. The faultless logic behind this election was the simple fact that Nouman
was the goalkeeper and so did not have to run as much as the others had to.
Bowing to the weight of reason and to the protestations of his innards, Nouman
rose and trudged wearily to the counter, encountering a face he had become
habituated to seeing every week.
The man at the counter, known to everyone as Asif, could be described safely as
vast. At 6’3”, he cut an imposing figure when he stood up, but fortunately,
standing was an activity he wasn’t particularly fond of. Long years of inactivity, coupled with a
flourishing business which surpassed all his financial expectations, resulted
in Asif’s girth achieving the steady inflation that Finance Ministers dream of.
He possessed an expressionless face, rendered even more incomprehensible by the
bushy beard that grew in all directions in its unique, haphazard fashion. His
nostrils flared with the effort of supplying the required levels of oxygen for
such a large existent. His ears seemed unnaturally small in comparison to the
rest of his body, as if they had been leant to him by someone not as
comprehensively endowed.
He sat there now on a miniscule stool with the seat so narrow that it barely
seemed to make an impression on the derriere of its possessor. It tempered the
otherwise intimidating spectacle with slight twist of absurdism, and allowed
Asif to seem much more approachable than he should have.
Asif ran a specialized food stall. He only served maggi, mixed with chicken and
cheese, or, for the misery loving vegetarians, fried cauliflower and cheese.
This in itself was hardly a recipe for success. What Asif’s stall had to offer
was that it was open past curfew. When every other restaurant or stall in the
city is shut, then even maggi and cheese takes on the attraction of a gourmet
meal to a bunch of starving twenty-somethings. Asif knew this and recognized
the potential this business had. He priced the food at double the price that
anyone would pay during the daylight hours. He bribed the cops every week for
his flouting of the curfew law. And voila! He had a profit margin that would
curdle the blood of some of the big restaurant chain owners, if only they knew.
Nouman was ignorant of all this, of course, as he made his way to the counter.
His mind was on his food, and the thought would be all consuming, at least
until he had consumed it all.
There was a crowd gathered at the counter, all reaching over each other and
attempting to shove their way to the front. At the best of times, the Indian
public is uncomfortable with the concept of lining up to facilitate smooth
service. In the middle of the night, when hunger rules all and a stall has
“Self Service” displayed in all its glory at the entrance, Caesar himself would
fail to bring order to the ensuing chaos.
Nouman, being a hardened Bangalorean, having spent his entire life in the same
city, did not pause to click his tongue at the animalistic behaviour of the
customers. He took a deep breath and earnestly plunged into the thick of it,
his thousand rupee notes aloft, hoping to catch Asif’s eye with the
larger-than-usual denomination.
“Twelve plates of Chicken and Cheese Maggi, six Pepsis, one packet of Classic
Milds and two lighters, please, Asif Bhai,” he said, the severity of his hunger
forcing a note of servility and pleading into his voice.
“Seven plates of Veg Maggi, seven Pepsis, and two packets of King Lights,
please, Asif Bhai,” spoke a rival customer, a boy of barely seventeen, almost
simultaneously.
Nouman suppressed his rising irritation. This boy had barely entered the fray,
and he had the audacity to shout out his order without even holding the money
ready and waving about in his hands. He was sure to get ignored, but, having
used his voice in vain, he had also managed to sabotage Nouman’s order, or its
audibility, at any rate.
All fifteen men jostling their way to the front also voiced their orders with
drone like repetitions with the hope that the order may get programmed into
Asif’s head via conditioning. Nouman’s hope of being heard withered with every
fresh rallying cry from the crowd around him. For one weak moment he considered
letting them place their orders and waiting till they were done before coming
forth with his request, but then sanity prevailed and he resumed the voicing of
his demands with renewed vigour and enhanced volume.
And then he witnessed the sight that many before him had marvelled at. Asif
Bhai, sitting in the midst of a rambling mob, each of them shouting different
denominations of different items while speaking in various languages or
admixtures of the same, calmly put his hand up and, pointing to first one
person, then the other, perfectly reproduced the exact order that person had
requested and stated the exact amount that was payable. There was no sign of
pen and paper. This was pure memory.
“Twelve plates of Chicken and Cheese Maggi, six Pepsis, one packet of Classic
Milds and two lighters. That will be 1900 rupees,” he said, pointing at Nouman.
Nouman handed over the notes in silence, having been rendered speechless by
this inhuman retentive ability possessed by a seemingly simple man. As he
processed the scale of the task Asif seemed to be handling with nonchalant
ease, Asif took the notes, tendered exact change, while still rattling off
orders for the other customers awaiting the confirmation that their order too
had been heard and processed.
Taking the change, Nouman silently walked back to his table, suddenly lost in
thought and no longer interested in the banter that unceasingly flowed from the
people around him. His contemplative mood was not noticed by his peers, a
silent man can lose himself quite easily amongst a crowd of talkative ones.
After sufficient time had been allowed for the cooks to prepare the simple
meal, Nouman ventured back to the counter to collect the food and drinks.
Indian Dhabas work on a beautiful system of trust that defies belief. Indian society
is one where people run the other way at the sight of the police, where one is
reluctant to help a stricken man on the street out of worry that it is a scam
or a trap devised by cunning crooks, where people are only interested in
accidents as a form of a morbid spectacle, rather than out of willingness to
help the victims. And yet, in the midst of this very society, thousands of
customers pay money in cash to cashiers, receive no bill in return, and return
calmly to their seats, with the blind trust that the correct order will be
given to them. They have no proof that the order has been placed, and their
reliance is solely on the trustworthiness and also the memory of the person
involved. In case the cashier’s memory fails him, he asks the customer to
repeat his order, and though the cashier too has no proof that the customer is
representing his order fairly and accurately, he accepts it without question
and business continues as usual. The mutual trust was implicit, it never needed
iteration, it was an unwritten rule and it was followed diligently, contrary to
every instinct of Indian society.
Nouman went back to the counter, which was overflowing with bipedal vermin as
always, and he mentally recited the order to himself, ready to reproduce it to
Asif Bhai again at a moment’s notice. But before he could utter a word, Asif
glanced at him, and without a moment’s hesitation, beckoned to his junior.
“Chote, twelve plates of Chicken and Cheese Maggi, six Pepsis, one packet of
Classic Milds and two lighters. Give it to this man here.”
A miniscule boy, barely past puberty, sprinted up to Nouman with the tray laden
with food and drinks and dumped it unceremoniously into his hands.
Nouman, head buzzing by now, managed to stop the little tyke before he sprinted
off again.
“Listen, what time does the dhaba close?” he asked.
“Six o’clock, Asif bhai shuts it and goes home,” came the reply.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The food and drinks had been decimated, the boys felt full and cheerful. Each
of them stood up, already contemplating the comfort of their respective beds.
All except one. Nouman bid farewell to each of them, assuring them that he too
would leave in a while, but wished to stay back for a bit longer. Half an hour later he found himself seated on
the corner table, book in hand, waiting for the dhaba to empty out so he could
get his chance to speak to Asif bhai.
As the populace slowly streamed out of the establishment, Nouman hesitantly
walked towards Asif with no little amount of trepidation. It occurred to him
that he had never actually spoken to Asif outside of their relationship as a
customer and a vendor. He knew virtually nothing about the man. This was an
unnecessary step into the unknown on a fantastical whim which his mind was all
too prone to.
“Asif Bhai?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” came the prompt reply. Asif looked momentarily surprised at seeing
Nouman still at the dhaba, but quickly slipped back into his professional
demeanour.
“Do you mind if I speak with you for a while?” Nouman inwardly grimaced. This
was beginning to sound like he was asking him out.
“Was there any problem, sir?” asked Asif, his whole attention now directed
towards Nouman.
“No, no, nothing like that. I just wanted to have a conversation with you about
something. It’s not urgent, I can come some other day if you’re busy.”
“No, I’m not busy. Tell me what you want to say,” said Asif, curiosity
sufficiently piqued.
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Nouman and Asif sat on the sidewalk on a deserted street. The nightly territory
wars between the stray dogs had commenced, and Nouman watched on in silence as
he considered what he wanted to say, how he was going to say it, and what
exactly he was trying to achieve with this conversation. Even after all this
time, he was not sure he knew the answer to any of those questions. It didn’t
seem to bother Asif, though. He sat alongside, unperturbed, smoking a
cigarette. He hadn’t said a word since they’d left the Dhaba. He was waiting
for Nouman to come out with whatever it was that he wanted to say.
Finally, Nouman broke the silence.
“Have you always had the ability to retain numbers and combinations so easily?”
Asif frowned. This was a weird question to begin with, he could not see where
this line of questioning led, and the uncertainty unsettled him.
“Yes,” he began, reluctantly, “since I was a child, I always found myself able
to remember whole series of numbers or dates or amounts which was not normal
for a kid my age, or any age for that matter. It did not take effort on my
part, I was born with it, it seemed natural to me. So much so that as a child,
I would often wonder why others could not do the same, and I would get
irritated at other peoples’ retentive inabilities.”
“Did you go to school?”
“I did for a while. I was still in primary school when my father left. With him,
the only source of income for our family left as well. Mother was educated,
intelligent. But she had never been allowed to work, and she wasn’t gonna start
now. I had two younger brothers. Toddlers still. I had no choice, I joined a tea
and food stall. The owners liked me, partly because I was cheap and partly
because of this rote memorizing ability. It took no time at all to train me.”
“How long did you work there?”
“I worked there for ten years, I finally left when I was 22. A rich bastard
came to our stall and ordered for his group. They ate everything, and then,
when it came to payment, he claimed he had not ordered all that we were
charging him for. It was 17 years ago, but I can still tell you his exact order
today. I can even tell you which of his friends ate which dish. But when a rich
man speaks, the authenticity of his statement is never called into question. I
argued with him because I was right. My owner sided with him because he was
rich. I was fired. I left and started a stall of my own. And that’s where you
find me today.”
“Have you never wished to study, to use your brains for something better?”
Asif shook his head, not in disgust or in disagreement, but purely out of failure
to comprehend.
“My brain provides for me, what else can I use it for? Is that not its only
job?” he asked in all earnestness.
“Yes,” pressed Nouman, “but you can do something more meaningful. Something
that will give you purpose. A goal, a dream.” Even as he spoke, Nouman realized
how empty and naive his words sounded. Why was he even here?
“Dreams and goals are not for me, sir. I provide for myself adequately, I don’t
have any pressing issues. That is enough. As to finding meaning and purpose in
life, I will leave that task to people like you. I don’t have the urge to dig
in that direction. It doesn’t interest me.”
His cigarette had gone out. He toyed with the idea of lighting another one, but
then seemed to decide against it. Glancing furtively at Nouman, he cleared his
throat and rose.
“I hope I was able to answer your questions satisfactorily,” he said, with no
real conviction. This whole conversation was a big, absurd mystery to him.
Turning, he walked away as hastily as he could without being rude.
Nouman sat in silence, wondering what he had expected. All around him, crickets
mocked his naivete in chirpy mirthfulness.
