An evening by the pool with James 'Bund'
(Babu da: If you are reading this I know you will sooner or later want to kill me but this is just to let you know that it is not my slightest intention to hurt or ridicule you, I love you and this is how I choose to show it!
Other readers: Seriously graphic content ahead, reader discretion advised, read on an empty stomach)
It must have been poor Babu’s turn when the angel at the ‘Hygiene-Sense’ department high up in heaven, deserted his post and went for a piss break, leaving the conveyor belt switched on. Babu passed right through, completely unsensitised and desanitised.
What many people don’t know about Babu is that, as a baby he was once picked up by a pack of wolves who had mistaken him for one of their cubs. He was dragged away into the dark woods where he survived for months among his new-found hairy friends until he was rescued. The ordeal took its toll and left a number of characteristic peculiarities in him which can be seen, felt, heard and smelled till date!
For the uninitiated, raise your glasses to the one and only Nilesh ‘Babu’ Sinha!
I have had the fortuity of knowing Nilesh and being associated with him as a brother, friend and junior in college for the last 5 odd years. What makes Nilesh appreciably different is the fact that there are an equal number of reasons to dislike him as there are to like him. Aside from being somewhat of a walking-talking brain, the man is pure genius with words, be it spoken or written. Enough has been said about his caustic tongue and his peculiar tendency to resort to Oriental martial art-esque poses (complete with sound effects) while throwing insults at people is legendary.
Nilesh is extremely kind hearted and has about fifteen and a half billion odd pet bacteria, microbes, germs and other micro organism in his clothes, in the words of a wise one, “Babu has an entire ecosystem existing in his socks alone!”
He has been seen barking at stray-dogs in the dark and deserted lanes of Noida in the dead of the night, there is video footage of him howling at the moon and what can we say, our man has a powerful fetish for women that strongly resemble retired Pakistani cricket players and Frankenstein himself, throw in a stray X-Chromosome or two and the faintest of likeliness to the feminine species and our man is ready for sweet-lovin’!
All said and done a great number of women did manage to look beyond Nilesh’s trademark blue shirt, black trousers (sometimes unwashed for months), muddy chappals and that endearing pong that sent many a victim scampering for fresh air, and recognise his blade-sharp intellect. This of course lead to a number of embarrassing sex scandals involving Nilesh, the particulars of which he would insist on describing to us, complete with noisy details that would set off disturbing images and even more disturbing thoughts in our young minds. To add to the bizarreness of it all he was extremely particular about using flavoured rubber protection. In his own words, “there are taste-buds everywhere!”
Perhaps all this explains his fixation with the name, James ‘Bund’ (Bund- pronounced; ‘Boond’, meaning; the female genitalia). Yes, it is extremely difficult to imagine what Martin Campbell, Terence Young and the likes saw in Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan!
I vividly remember an evening I had spent with Nilesh at the club that he used to frequent for swimming, truth be told, Karan and I tagged along hoping to check out girls. Those days Nilesh was on an aggressive weight loss mission. Having realised that as much as a mere pound or two more would probably necessitate the use of a size-D bra Nilesh was hell bent on shedding those pounds and he went about it zealously.
Inside the changing room while we looked around for girls Nilesh shed his clothes rapidly. Disappointed at the sight of shapeless and ridiculously hairy Sardarjis in colourful underwear Karan and I turned to Nilesh, we stood watching transfixed as the Michelin mascot himself stood before us in tiny black swimming-trunks. A set of teeth appeared from amidst his facial forestation and one eyebrow went right up as Nilesh in his deep voice said, “Whaddaya think lads?”
As he jogged towards the pool his belly jiggled gleefully in perfect rhythmic consonance with the upper half of his body and his torso resembled a fat man’s face with a wobbling mouth and bouncing eyes. Displacing much water and making much noise our man made his entry into the deep blue depths of the pool and plummeted right underneath; he almost crashed into the bottom of the pool when by some inexplicable force of gravity, rather the lack of it, he managed to make a perfect rebound and slowly headed back to the surface. As Karan and I gaped speechless, dripping from head to toe, Shamu soared above the surface of the water grabbing hold of the handle-bars and said……
“Whaddaya think lads?”
It was amazing how gracefully and deftly Nilesh managed to do his laps, each stroke followed the previous one after a considerable amount of time as he gunned back and forth huffing and puffing. Quite admirably after about an eternity our man managed to complete all his laps, as he proudly took the steps off the pool his grace reminded me of Ursula Andress emerging out of the sea in a bikini. A mind numbingly terrifying thought suddenly crossed my mind and the lovely Ursula Andress was replaced by an image of Nilesh emerging out of the pool in a bikini swishing and swaying his long hair and the fat man’s face and eyes wobbling in ultra-slow motion……
“Whaddaya think lads?”
I nearly suffered a seizure when thankfully the clouds cleared and my eyes opened up, Nilesh stood right in front grinning, the water had made his black trunks roll further down threatening a sudden disclosure any minute.
As Nilesh, Karan and I tottered back to the changing room chatting, I put my arm around Nilesh. I knew he would never realise how much I would miss him after he’d graduate and leave and the time was coming soon. I tried not to think of it. There were other urgent matters to take care of, like telling Nilesh that his trunks had now rolled way down and a few Sardars behind us were laughing at his exposed butt crack.
