Raju  :   “Abey Panda.. Rasgullaa”!   (Hey Panda.. “Rasgullaa”)

Panda  :  “Muh mey hai be”! (I have them in my mouth)

Rourkela had always been a cosmopolitan town; pardon me for using this word more in a national sense than international. Probably you wont associate cosmopolitanism with an Indian town, it has always been more of a “city” term. But Rourkela like most steel townships in the country, always had a mix of Indians from all walks of life and all parts of the nation. We definitely had the diversity if not the population to match any other big city.

A gang of 5 students,consisting of a mallu, a bihari, an oriya, an assamse and a bong, met after school. As usual they were planning the program for the rest of the evening. Those days we had a lot of time after school and homework. The TV bug hadn’t yet become the widespread malady that it is today. You spent your time with real friends and not TV characters.

The preferred mode of transport used to be Avon, Hercules or Atlas. Some of you might be wondering what they are. Well, they were the top brand bicycles, the pride possession of most of my genre. The rendezvous for the evening was decided to be Madras Canteen, situated at the cusp of Sector-16 and Sector-17, made famous by its delicious idlis and dosas. I am not sure whether this small hotel (that’s what we used to call a restaurant) still exists. Somebody from Rourkela can confirm. Soon five bicycles flew towards the destination at full steam.

Their vehicles safely parked, the boys entered “the hotel” and took seat at the front table, the one next to the cashier’s corner. They ordered the usual stuff, Masaala Dosa and Chutney. That was all they could afford with the meager pocket money that they managed to eek out of their parents.

These food places always had a glass cabinet, next to the cashier, which served both as a display corner as well as the storage area for sweets and confectioneries. The sliding glass door at the back side was the only access to the cabinet. The gang was seated right next to the glass door of the cabinet, with Panda closest to it.

Rourkela, for all that I can remember, was always plagued by “load shedding”. For those unfamiliar to this term, it meant that sections of the township would have no electricity during different parts of the day. Late nights were the most preferred time slot, but sometimes, some sections may get affected during evenings as well. That evening the lights went off at Madras Canteen. Pitch darkness.

Raju, suddenly realized the humongous opportunity at hand. The whole cabinet of sweets was at our mercy with nobody to see, as it took at least five to six minutes for the petromax to be activated.

That was when I heard Raju’s hoarse, camouflaged but stern directive to Panda (the one mentioned at the beginning of the post).

Later, on our way back (having paid only for the Masala dosas), Panda narrated how he had managed to devour at least 10 rasgullas, in the 5 minutes, before the pertromax spread its light around.

Though the rest didn’t get to taste any rasgullaas, there still was an overall sense of achievement and satisfaction.

The moral of the story - Great minds think alike and at the same time as well. :-)

What do you say?

...TED