Friday, November 18, 2005

dot in love part ii: conspiracy theories and car chases

[this has been in pipeline for long and after a year, I decided to do it justice by posting it. Part one can be found at http://harishc.blogspot.com/2004/12/dot-in-love.html ]

may the groom's heart be filled with hope and the brides feet filled with lead."
allan kent (mr. trout) in runaway bride

“you want to know why i am like this.”
“you told me. family problems, right?” i said.
i couldn’t resist a tiny bit of sarcasm in this. of course, when a guy whom you have known for a year and more starts acting funny and hides things from you kind of get pissed off. he pretended not to notice the sarcasm and continued.
“you were right, it’s her” he said.
i couldn’t help but nod in acceptance. though i had doubts about this for a long time it was weird hearing the confirmation from dot’s mouth. i dragged on the dying cigarette and started thinking about it. the more i thought about it the more tangled it became…
“dude…” i blurted out, more to fill the silence than anything else.
“i know, i know, it’s complicated”
“complicated is not the word for it… the wedding has been fixed”
“don’t you think i don’t know about it? i want to go there and get her.”
suddenly i was scared. it is during times like this when i miss mush or josh. i mean, not because they are some kind of problem solvers but at least they could say something and fill the awkward silence. still, dot was really in love. i mean only love can make a guy who used to “fart bike” (don’t ask me what that is!) thru the mscc floor act like a chihuahua on sedatives. i talked to him a lot that day, trying to reason and change his mind. again, we decided to postpone the discussion from there to forum the next day. he said he will call josh also. i nodded in agreement thinking that two of us could convince him against this. this act of sheer madness. i couldn’t think of the alternative, of him going all the way to her house and telling her parents about it. i knew that i would have to go with him, maybe josh also or nattu even. sending him alone there would be sheer insanity.

the next day we agreed to meet at forum around 2. i was late and by the time i reached the food court josh and dot were sitting and chatting. josh was flabbergasted. i could tell it from the way he was acting hyper.
“did he tell you his plan?” he asked me.
“yeah”
“man, this is crazy. have you thought about what is going to happen? you guys going there and getting her in front of her parents. what if they complaint to police and they come chasing you? you’re going to get arrested and her parents will convince her to turn against you. you will be convicted of kidnapping…”
“whoa, whoa, hold it there mr. optimist” i stopped him before he could continue with this conspiracy theory story that would put any tabloid to shame. his thought train has a problem of accepting reality unless its something technical. but again i couldn’t make fun of him as i would have done on another occasion as
a the guy was dead serious and
b. i had to dissuade dot from this runaway bride idea.

what transpired that day was that we managed to convince him with a lot of arguments and conspiracy theories (one of which included us going at 120 km/hr in his ford ikon chased by a van load of her dad’s ruffians and two or three police jeeps, yeah, josh was on a high that day!) that he going there to whisk her off was a bad idea and a better one would be to take his dad with him and try to convince her parents. the chances were remote that her family would agree as the engagement was already over but this was better than us going there and whisking her off, car chase and all.