A lifetime in law school contd....

Chapter 3: B. Sampath

“Hi, I'm Sampath.”

Twackk!!

Violent slap administered by violent auto driver.

Introducing B. Sampath.

It’s amazing how South Indian names have initials with no real name assigned to the initial. (No, I’m not misinformed. Village addresses don’t qualify as names.)

And so with B. Sampath, it was always just B. Sampath.

Of course, it was a different story altogether that he didn’t quite get a chance to explore the nuances of Tamilian naming ceremonies with Babu (no initial given), the violent auto driver.

But wait. We’ve gone too far.

Introducing B. Sampath.
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To understand B. Sampath, you must picture a handsome, South Indian boy.

See, now the chances are that you are picturing one of B. Sampath’s many hidden pictures of handsome South Indian boys.

Try keying in ‘Homely, Sheltered South Indian boy’ instead, and presto! You’ll get tons of image hits for B. Sampath.
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Don’t get me wrong though. B. Sampath was not gay; it was just that he loved Cabby.

So when Cabby and his roommate Balvan Bhupinder were off for dinner that fateful night, B. Sampath insisted on tagging along.

The three of them took an auto to this sorry excuse of a restaurant about 10 mins auto time from the Boys’ Hostel.

Here’s a tip for all those of you who intend on taking an auto ride in Bangalore: Concede the double meter argument to any auto driver double the size of you. Do it sportily. With sangfroid even. No sense in brooding over the issue like Balvan.

For old Balvan brooded on the matter of extra payment. And as if that weren’t enough, he dwelled on it.

Auto drivers in Bangalore are an amiable lot. That is, when they aren’t confronted by brooding passengers who dwell on matters of extra payment. They tend to get agitated when this happens.

And so when this particularly bulky auto driver reached out to grab Balvan’s shirt, he was more than agitated when Balvan decided to push him down and run across the road.

Now it was Balvan who showed Enterprise in his decision to leg it. Cabby and B. Sampath, however, remained transfixed to where they were.

When the auto driver recovered and looked at these two in the eye, he did so while they were both being suspended in the air – one in each paw.

Here’s where B. Sampath’s sheltered, homely mind decided to intervene. “This is all so wrong”, it reflected, “all remediable by effective communication and pleasantries.”

[You really ought to skip back to the beginning of this chapter right about here.]

Well, after both B. Sampath and the auto driver introduced themselves to each other, albeit using different techniques, B. Sampath decided to set out to look for Balvan, while the auto driver decided to introduce himself to Cabby.
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Balvan had managed to hide himself on the second floor of the building that housed the restaurant that they had intended to visit. And with his beakish nose stuck out of a small window, he watched the events unfold on the other side of the road.

The eye-opener that wrinkled Balvan’s nose, was the sight of B. Sampath heading towards the restaurant – his shirt in hand, and his banyan and hair in a mess.

When B. Sampath finally made it up the stairs to where Balvan was cooped up, he explained in his slow Carnatic accent that the banyan was a disguise.

Having thus placated his curiosity as to the case of the missing Surd, B. Sampath decided to go back and investigate on the state of the dangling one.

Balvan begged him not to. “He’ll make you tell him where I am,” Balvan bleated. “Don’t go back!”

But B. Sampath had his disguise on and nothing could stop him.

Approximately 3½ minutes later, Balvan watched on timidly, as B. Sampath, (still in disguise) with his right arm twisted around his back, led the visibly agitated auto driver up the stairs to Balvan.

“Balvan… a word of advice,” B. Sampath muttered to Bhupinder, “…take the beating…”

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Things were never too cheery with Balvan and B. Sampath after the whole incident.

There was a certain lack of reliance in the manner in which Bhupinder surveyed B.S.

Almost as if he half expected the latter to vanish at any point and return, complete with disguise and raving auto driver.
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