Northeast Natters: Prologue - Day 0

On The Turning Away

One sunny June afternoon in Bangalore — There! Could a better prelude than this exist? — three Malayali men in three different age decades gathered at Sachin’s place. On the table: Mr. Johnny Walker marched aristocratically around the red carpet banner wrapped around the whisky bottle. Sultry beers bathed in cold sweat pouted at us. The flat filled with the strains of Mark Knopfler and Aerosmith out of sync with the munching and chomping of fried chicken sausages, chips, and Behrouz Biryani. On our minds: The fact that life was about to scatter us in three directions.

Jose had Canada lined up. His immigration came through. Sachin was expecting his second child and moving to Singapore. I was headed back to Mumbai after three years of living alone in Bangalore.

Sachin frying the chicken sausages in butter

“Let’s do a trip, man!” Sachin had urged weeks earlier at Prost Brew Pub. “You guys have biked together, but I can’t ride. And we’ve talked Vietnam, Cambodia, all that. But this is it. After August, we may not meet again. Let’s go north — I’ve never been beyond Delhi.”

Ideas flew. Drive to Leh in Sachin’s Hyundai Creta? He squirmed. My poor Creta won't survive; not happening. Kasol? Too much trekking. Garhwal? Same problem. Mcleodganj? I’d already been twice. Kashmir? Unsettled. More often than not, it's like walking into the sets of the likes of "Saving Private Ryan". Only thing is, this is no film set. Ladakh by air? Too expensive. Bhutan? Same story.

Then the Northeast came up. I hadn’t been to that neck of the woods since my honeymoon in Sikkim in 2003. First Meghalaya, then maybe Arunachal Pradesh.

Jose, decisive as ever, checked flights. Within minutes he snapped his MacBook shut and said, “Done. Tickets booked. Bangalore → Kolkata → Guwahati. Return direct.”

Sachin looked nervous. “Edda, sure about this? Floods, landslides… what if we get stuck?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Jose grinned. “Worst case, we just drink our way through.”

We clinked glasses, laughed, and agreed to “play it by ear.” The trip was on.

Sachin's beautiful house

Where do we go? Where do we go now? And while we mulled, Jose booked the air tickets.

Three happy Mallu men after the trip was planned and the booze bottles emptied.

On the Night Before

I lived closest to the airport, if you could call it that. “Closest” still meant 41 km via the Outer Ring Road. Jose and Sachin decided to crash at my place and catch the 3:45 AM airport bus.

The thought of hosting them worried me. My flat was a decrepit pigeonhole even the watchman pitied. I had no furniture; A dead refrigerator stored four plates, 3 spoons and forks each, two cooking woks, a coffee mug, and seven glasses. Why seven glasses? Priorities you know. Besides, there was this disastrous electrical wiring that caused two near heart attacks about which I shall write elsewhere. To sum it up, it was something of a ghetto minus the nefarious activities that come with one.

Worse, the "house" sat next to a bar with the same name as an ex-girlfriend. After our bitter breakup, I couldn’t tolerate anything connected to her — our favorite songs, films, not even my old car, which I nearly disposed of, leaving it in Kerala at my parents', not that they used it much. Whenever I stepped out of my apartment building, I wouldn't look up to avoid seeing the "Her Name" Bar and Restaurant signboard. Eventually, one weekend afternoon, I forced myself to walk into that Her Name bar. The beer was cheap and nice, the snacks edible, and slowly the place became my weekend haunt.

On the previous day of the trip, the Bangalore office organized a farewell lunch for four of us — two transfers, including me, and two exits — at a long-awaited buffet at Absolute Barbeque. Stuffed to the gills, I still joined Jose that evening for beers and chicken starters at Her-Name bar.

“So this is your "beloved" place?” he asked, scanning the dim interior. It was packed for once. “Not bad. Chilled beer, decent food. Not so bitter after all.”

Sachin came later, and for once we called it an early night. The alarm was set for 3 AM.

At dawn, as sunlight streaked behind a British Airways jet on the tarmac, the three of us were already in motion. Bangalore was behind us. The Northeast awaited.

Sunlight streaks at the horizon behind the British Airways sitting on the tarmac.