PROLOGUE

MAIDAGASCAR

Prologue

It had been a boring day so far. With the rain Gods showing no mercy at all, the outdoors had been washed over by the ragged stream. This rain-frenzy had driven Rishi, Arsh and Chetan into “hibernation” into their homes, a recluse they seldom visited but for the meals and their short nocturnal “slumbers”. The trio had exhausted every possible avenue of entertainment, be it baking cakes, cooking pasta (trust me, no tomatoes, please!), Orkutting, Facebooking, and even (sigh!) writing a novel.

With the rain showing no signs of taking a recess break, boredom had engulfed the room. The empty Pepsi bottles and boxes of Dominoes pizzas, accompanied with the ever scintillating Pink Floyd music made the atmosphere drowsy.

“We could do something, guys, instead of just lazing around the room sluggishly like leaches,” said a bored Arsh. “Yeah, like going to the loo and washing down those pizzas and Pepsis. I’m game for that,” chimed Rishi. “Hey guys,” piped in Chetan, “why don’t we all tell stories. We can choose a topic, and then start telling stories. It’ll be fun. Why don’t you start, Rishi, you’ve got the wildest tales, with an unusual snappish humour!.”

“Oh, now that you do mention it, I had this maid, who……………………………………”

ONE

ONE

“Rishi Baboo, doodh pee lo.” Lying in the blanket, I felt my olfactory lobes protesting against that strong, pungent garlic smell, which seemed to be radiating from my maid, Meenakshi, a.k.a Meenu.”

FLASHBACK. I remember the hot summer day when Banto started devel

oping a big bump on her tummy (fine! I was just a kid; how was I to know that she was actually two persons, not just one!). Mum and Dad were trying their best to find another suitable maid, as this “specie” was coming closer to the verge of extinction with every passing day. I guess we were fortunate enough to lay our hands on one in the first place.

I soon started to jumped to conclusions about her appearance as that of an ideal maid. Sigh! But my “dreams” were short-lived. As Meenakshi entered the portals of her new workplace, my vocabulary failed when it came to describing her “geographical topography.”

“Dude, this is your seventh pack of chewing gum. You’re addicted to it or what?” cut in Arsh.

“Screw you, woman. You’re taking away all the excitement in reciting a tragedy, even Shakespeare’s Macbeth would be proud of,” I continued. “I thought I was in a basketball court, only I had shrunken in size, as the “basketball” just seemed to be so much bigger than me. And her hands? Ha! The spades of her hands made her appear as the “queen of spades”. Maybe the dwarf hormone in her barrel-like structure was a wee bit too over-ambitious. The chocolate cake of her face wore an apologetic and apparently red sindoor which hardly seemed to be in contrast with her complexion. And her dressing sense was undeniably a fashion catastrophe. She wore a drab grey salwar-kameez, and literally too! I mean, guys, who wears a men’s shirt with a salwar! But what struck my eyes as most appalling was the pair of Nike shoes she had donned, possibly the first “fake” pair of Nikes I had ever laid my eyes on (or were they!). Well, that’s Meenu for you.”