How's That For an Anti-Climax!!

So the other day, my friend Rosko (more bout her later) and I had gone to Chandni Chowk for some work (she needed to exchange a recorder, cuz she needed to record her guruji sing, cuz she's a dancer, cuz she's awesome, cuz she's a super-woman).
Anyhoo, I LOOOVE Chandni Chowk. Its one of the places in Delhi that never fails to embrace you and make you a part of itself. You know how it is once you get there, you cant help but lose yourself amongst its rich history, the buzzing crowd, warm wafts of mouth watering street food, ballimaran market, paranthe wali gali...aaaah-total bliss. But little did we know our medieval romance was soon going to turn into a modern horror!

It jus so happened that as we walked out of the store we got caught in between a sudden rush of people and there were shoves and pulls. But you know it’s Chandni Chowk and you accept it as being normal. But also in this instant, you get this minor inkling like wait a minute this woman shouldn’t push me the way she is even if it’s crowded and you’re like something isn’t right. That split second after this realization hits you, you put your hand inside your bag to check your wallet, and wadyaknow, its missing. And this is precisely what happened that day with Rosko. And the funny part is as soon as you realize that it has actually has happened , that you’ve actually lost your wallet and you try to look around you to figure out who’s taken it, the “crowd” has miraculously vanished and you’re suddenly standing in the middle of the pavement, eyes brimming with tears of helplessness, a friend looking at you with sympathy, wallet lost and along with it your atm card your college ID card and the cute little love notes that you’ve preserved cuz your best friend had given it to you.

You see them everywhere in Delhi; you know these shady-lookin-women who move about in gangs. You always look at them with suspicion and contempt and when you catch yourself doing that you scold yourself a little for acting elitist and discriminating people for their financial background. But there’s no smoke without fire. I can guarantee you that every one out of five people you talk to about such “gangs” will have a story to tell you. This is my story.

So anyway as I was saying, the two of us went there cuz she needed to get her tape recorder exchanged. After Half an hour of witnessing and learning some invaluable lessons on the tape recorder business, we came out of the shop. All of a sudden we were swamped by a sea of people. But it’s Chandni Chowk and you don’t think anything about it. However, Rosko noticed hat this woman was pushing her a bit too hard, unnecessarily. Initially she jus shrugged her off disgusted at teh thought that the woman was trying to feel her up but then she noticed that it was a bit too rough to be a feel-up. Then the crowd dispersed as quickly it had formed. And then it hit her, the realization that something wrong had happened and she rummaged her jhola for her wallet and wadyaknow it was gone, missing, not there. Obviously our first suspect was that woman in the orange sari, henceforth referred to as Orange Sari. Here we were in the middle of Chandni Chowk, not knowing what to do next. And the funniest part was we knew who had stolen the wallet but we din know what to do about it. Helpless, Rosko started to cry. We couldn’t confront Orange Sari cuz you never know, she could’ve started screaming and shouting and we couldn’t t possibly bark back at her. Besides, we din know if she was part of a nexus and she might have jus passed on the wallet to someone else. So we did what we could do. We followed Chor and her gang. They were all goody natural, having their kulfi, acting as if everything is normal. Everything’s so hunky-dory. We actually followed her through half of Chandni Chowk. It looked like a scene right out of a tranatino movie. Wrought high with suspense and tension; Foreheads beading of sweat, hearts beating fast, black and white slo-mo, a lone voice singing a wailing a fast paced tune in the background… What’s going to happen next? There was no actual confrontation. This little game continued for a while.

What happened next was something even Tarentino himself would not have been able to conceive of. In a flash of a moment the Orange Sari quickly put her hand into her bag, threw the wallet onto the pavement and continued with her stroll as if nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. I mean talk about shamelessness.

At this Rosko picked up the wallet and shouted “thank you auntyji! Churake waapus karne ke liye!”