So slowly the team presented itself, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier...Spy. We hadn't had a juicy trip to gnaw at for a long time and our mandibles had grown to our feet. Suffice it to say that by Friday we had a spring to our shuffle and a new energy to wag or coil our tails.
The owners of our slave shops sensed something was amiss and tried their damned best to entice us to run for a few more days on the the treadmills. But this is where they felt alarmed we all turned our whiskers up at the pieces of gouda and cheddar that they held out. By the time Friday second half emerged they found that while looking fit we were all coming down with the plague and the mucus level in the air scared the dickens out of them.
By five thirty the squeaking had grown to a thumping, that threatened to shake them out of their miserable existence. And since they lacked imagination and free will they were content to go home and let us out of the cages. And what a time began.
Soldier, Spy and Tinker confirmed plans and went into raptures about what bait was to be used and who was bringing it etc. Being quite useless in such matters I decided to drive from my den till Usmanpur. My ratmobile was quite adequate for going to the wild blue yonder and so the others also agreed to let me have this honour. Spy naturally had had a bad day but it might have been a great day for other rats, as it involved cutting loose the denim from the hips of nubile nymphets while he endeavoured to fix their pelvis. Soldier took over the task of nutrition with elan and typical efficiency and he also got the maps for the assault zone and all organised. All this he did with a slight smile playing on his lips and a happy shine in his eyes.
The next day on Saturday we met at 9.30 at my parking lot. Soldier had driven all the way from Gurgaon but his sense of timing was better than the Omega on his wrist. Spy emerged as we began to stash stuff into the car, he was so skilled at bushcraft that we had mistaken him for the shady tree under which the car was parked. Had he studied Ninjutsu he would have appeared with a flash of smoke but he is more low key. Instead he appears just like Vishnu in those old Shivaji Ganeshan movies. One moment we were cursing him and next moment he was handing us his fishing gear.
Nine fifty saw us making good speed towards Majnu Ka Tila etc, when we got a call from a special ops rat. He couldn't resist knowing about the trip and not being with us and so we decided to meet up with him at Rajgat. Due to us now being possessed about getting some fishing hours in we drove on in two cars. So actually after an hour's drive we were at this breath taking stretch of river. Feeling like Nelson Mandela (you know just after being released from prison) we screamed lock and load and grabbed our fishing rods. Loaded with complex combinations of line, weight and reel we began to descend to the bank. As usual Spy just thought he was there and he was, soldier did his commando stunt and emerged from a tunnel right next to a bank. I did the laughing buddha maneuver (just rolled down the hill) and special ops rappelled down the hill using his boot laces in a complex sawing technique.
The river was just begging to be worked over and so we did. We had more casts than Shah Rukhs' Om Shanti Om. And then we tried Doc's miracle bait...Special Ops got a bite, Soldier got a bite, I wasn't even close to a nibble. But there was lot that engaged us as we saw pairs of Brahminy Geese, Storks and Kingfishers at work. Soldier in the meanwhile decided to pull out refreshments from his freezer and we began to feel pretty darn good by then. Our spirits expanded, tried to go down the river to goad the fish to take our bait...but naah no dice. They weren't in a mood to play.
And so lunch was declared...and here is where you discover how much planning goes into a trip like this. Soldier had amazing meat curries, pulao and paranthas in enough quantity to feed an army. Spy had got his version of GI RATIONS: Kebabs, boiled eggs, kulchas, tiger pawn...
Oh heck, the last was meant to be bait.The amount the man does for his fish nothing but I kid you not Tiger Prawn. Did I tell you that soldier had planned stuff to the last t? He even had napkins and an ice box with chilled water and Coke. He just made it so hard for us
there we were surviving living off the land...the fat of the land hee heee.Lunch over we all held hands as Spy teleported us all to the river banks. Special Op decided that holding hands was too 'Delhi Darling' and decided to spin in the air till the bank John woo style. We fished for another hour but gave up after that. Maybe it was knowing that too much of a good thing was bad or going through that strange feeling again. The feeling that you have when a few locals plonk themselves next to you with two feet of line, a hook with a fragment of an earthworm and begin to pull out one fish after another. Granted they were fingerlings but we wouldn't have minded one or two either. You get kinda introspective," should I cut up that darn fancy shimano, donate the spinner and just get a half liter coke bottle and some line?"
But the meat collector's left and we packed up our gear and then Soldier did something that had us back to the mindset of five year old, who just discover a bubble gun. He pulled out his beautiful Beretta and said," Go ahead waste some rounds." And so we set up some targets at a sand bank and began to pop away. I shot twice and connected once, Spy naturally shot thrice and connected twice. And he shot so damn fast that as Louis L'Armour was fond of writing-It sounded like one long roll of thunder. Special Ops shot very well and vowed to carry his side arm next time. Soldier was happy to let off a few and mis deliberately to massage our egos.
That is how the adventure ended with us driving back to our cages, family pressures, social obligations etc. But our tails had grown longer our teeth cut to the right size and our feet ready to hit the tread mill for another week. Let's hope that we can do it again soon.
Dev
Grr