“Oh shit! What a cunt I am!”
Coming from Girish, it didn’t surprise me. He had still not grown out of the college lingo in spite of the fact that he has been married for over a decade and a half, had a couple of kids and had resigned from a steady job almost three years ago.
What did surprise me was that he had uttered these words to me in the presence of his wife.
I quickly glanced at Nita and was even more surprised that she didn’t even bat an eyelid. Obviously, this kind of language went with the territory.
“What’s the matter, honey?” she asked him.
“I completely forgot to specify what kind of a sailboat we wanted. And the only thing the assholes have is a single lounge type yacht. Shit! Hey, Mahesh, most of them are your family, could you please plant some kind of a story that will keep out my part in this?”
I grinned at him and then looked at Nita. “Your hubby’s got a pretty handy tool in me,” I told her.
“No kidding, pal. I had told them that the trip would be made in a luxury yacht and each couple would have their own separate cabins. When they realize that this isn’t going to happen, they will fuck me!”
I was embarrassed that he was talking to me as if Nita wasn’t around. After all, one learns not to use army language or college lingo with ladies around.
But I guess Nita was not one of those types of ladies who insisted on ethics, morality or even conduct when it came to usage of four letter words.
To escape from the situation I pretended to study the rest of ‘them’ who were at the moment chattering away between themselves on some topic that involved the inhuman treatment meted out to wild animals. Apparently, the sight of the bison we had hunted down yesterday was still fresh in their minds.
To a certain extent Girish was speaking the truth when he had termed most of them as being part of family.
Deep was my wife’s elder brother and Aparna was his wife. Divya was his second cousin. Atul was her husband.
“Relax, man. I’ll let slip that the hotel’s luxury yacht is under repairs. You take care that it sounds authentic; talk to the manager ASAP. Lucky my wife isn’t around, or she’d have me by my throat.”
“What’s the matter bro? You guys having problems?” Anjali, his sister was walking to us, having broken away from the rest of the group. When she heard about the problem, she muttered to her younger brother, “Some kind of a organizer! It’s a stroke of luck that you have Mahesh around, or those guys would have you for breakfast!”
“Tell me about it,” he shrugged philosophically, turning around to walk to the hotel, presumably to talk to the manager.
There was a collective groan when I broke the news to the group. Divya was particularly upset.
“That was supposed to be one of the USP’s of the tour,” she protested. “This isn’t fair! Somebody’s got to take it up with the hotel management.”
“That’s what Girish is doing at the moment. But look, if we are going to waste time just waiting here and arguing with those guys, we would be wasting our time.”
“I say we take whichever boat is available,” declared Deep. Being the eldest (he was 47, an year older than me) his opinions often carried a lot of weight. Luckily for Girish, this time too, it did because everybody agreed.
And that’s how we sailed into the storm.
****
It was an eighty-footer and quite beautiful. Forward, just behind the Control cabin was the captain’s cabin, a tiny cubbyhole, about eight by eight. Next to it was the crew’s shack also of the same size, but fitted with double decked bunkers to sleep four.
Behind this structure was a huge oval shaped lounge, almost a thousand five hundred square feet. The hotel manager had hastily thrown in a few shag rugs, some chairs, a dozen or so pillows and an equal number of blankets. To one end was a small kitchen, which temporarily doubled up as store. There was little beyond alcohol and other small snacks that occupied this room. Attached to this was a slightly larger cubicle with a couple of showers.
The rest of the yacht was open. It was basically built for the foreign visitors: lots of space to simply lie down and soak yourselves with the sun.
Speaking of which, it was a pretty bright day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and when the Carpenters sang ‘Top of the World’ from the booming speakers, I thought it was pretty apt.
The captain was a local guy named Joy and another wimp named Raja assisted him. The manager’s young daughter, Nasreen and his daughter-in-law, Parveen acted as guides.
We didn’t really notice them at first, because all we were intent on doing was to drink up as much beer as possible and rib the guy who’d be having his turn with the fishing rod.
“Hey, I got something, I think.”
“Must be the luxury yacht.”
“With his luck, he would pull out a dead whale”
“Oh yeah? Just ‘cos you’re my wife don’t mean you got the right to criticize me. Just wait, I bet it’s a mermaid I got”
“Whatcha gonna do with a mermaid, meathead?”
“Yeah, you can’t screw them”
“I know. I heard they give great head! Ouch, honey that hurt. I was kidding!”
With the beer flowing freely (I swear Girish was adulterating the beer by mixing whisky in it, because it seemed to be getting stronger) tongues got loose and everyone entered the game in the right spirit.
I was seated on a rocking chair away from the stern, nursing my fourth beer / whisky.
“Aren’t you too young to be a guide?” I asked Nasreen who was sitting next to me in a similar chair.
“Oh, but I’m not the regular guide,” she explained. “I’m on vacation and I do these rounds quite often, so I kind of know this place.”
She was an exquisitely beautiful girl. Sort of aristocratic features, satin-soft complexion, almond shaped eyes as blue as the sea and a slim coltish figure, with the curves in the right places. She was, as was everybody on the yacht, wearing minimum clothes: denim shorts and halter. You’d have to be inhuman to wear anything else but minimum cloth with the kind of sun that was blazing down.
I had kidded her by asking her where her burqua (the traditional veil) was and she had kidded right back and asked me what I was doing without my dhoti. She was very easygoing and very, very charming.
