CHAPTER 3- BACK STREET BOYS,GUYS FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD

Now let me describe my friends from the neighbourhood, the funny blokes, the guys who provided me with all the ammunition to attack my school mates with my sarcasm, the boys who thought they were the coolest. The strangest character among the group was Muez, he was cheap, crass, naughty and did not know what to speak and when to speak. That used to get him in a lot of trouble with Geetha Madam and the other tutors. All the boys called him Habeebnala, not just because he lived there but because he had a constant runny nose through out the year and would flow just like the nala. Other than him there were three guys named Shehbaaz, which is like the most common name in the community because every third guy is either a Shehbaaz or a Akbar. So all the Shehbaaz’s were given nick names. In my group we had Shehbaaz Billu the one I introduced to you in the first chapter. He was the guy who had the first personal computer, the first internet connection, the first walk-man, well, let’s just say that he was the first one to get a lot of things, I think he even reached puberty early. It may have been a coincidence or maybe the personal computer and internet connection had a hand in that. Nobody dared to say anything to Billu because he possessed two qualities a killer smile and an even deadlier sense of humor. He used to humiliate his rivals with ease and then just smile at them while the others cried with laughter. Then there was Shehbaaz Kaalu. Indians are the biggest hypocrites in the world I must say, we cry foul at the way the western world treats us and call them racists at any chance we get but if one of us is a bit darker than us brownies we label him as Kaalu, kaalia or other derogatory terms. Kaalu was a terrific sportsman, a born athlete, good at any sport he chose to play, be it badminton, table tennis, cricket or kabaddi. He used to be a big show off when we were younger because he got the most pocket money and had his own chetak scooter which was like a status symbol when we were kids. But his biggest problem was he could never make up his mind on what he wanted to do and he was never satisfied with what he had. If everyone else was playing cricket he wanted to swim. If he was given bowling he wanted to bat higher up the order. If everyone wanted to go to a restaurant he wanted to watch a movie. All of us used to get very irritated with this attitude but we came up with a plan, we used to tell him the opposite of what we had planned and get him to do what we all wished to do. The third shehbaaz was Shehbaaz motu, he was plum and fat and ate at the drop of a hat. Motu had a love for all the best things in life expensive food, expensive clothing and expensive women, about whom I will tell you in the later chapters. Everyone picked on Motu because he wore unusual colors like pink, orange and yellow and had a penchant for trying out new things like new hairstyles, piercing his ears, wearing jewelry and stuff. He also was pretty dumb and never ever accepted any of his mistakes nor did he change his style. But his heart was pure and he never ever lost his temper no matter how much he was teased. He was the first metro sexual man I knew, even when being metro sexual was not considered cool. All these guys became my friends later but one guy who was my friend since childhood was Salman or Sallu as we called him. We went to the same Montessori and lived in the same apartments until my family moved out to a bigger place. Sallu was a bit of a geek earlier but became really handsome and good looking as we got older. Now he looked like a jock but was really shy and hardly spoke to anyone. He only had fun and was his true self when he was with us. All the girls in the tutorial stared at him was a glint in their eyes that I did not understand back then but none of the girls spoke to him ever because he was with Billu always. If Broke Back Mountain would have released then they would have surely been mistaken for gorgeous gay cowboys. But we knew that was not the case because of Billu’s website preferences. My cousin Abrar or Timmy as everyone called him was a part of the gang too. He was a year younger than the others but got along really well with all of us. He had just moved to colony and came to know the others because of me. Initially everyone knew him as Murad’s Cousin but later on he became quiet popular especially with the ladies.