By Ananya S Guha
My mind’s eye shifts to two restaurants in Shillong, Jalpan & Kalpana. These two were very popular for their samosas and sweets. But apart from this unemployed youth like us made frequent visitations to spend time and indulge in our discussions over cups of tea. Strategically located in the main road in Laitumkhrah, we walked into them with the kind of familiarity one has with one’s own room in the house! The real chat sessions would begin with two or three and the numbers would gradually increase to ten or twelve, which resulted in pulling chairs from the vicinity of other tables in the restaurant. All this the owners bore with tolerance for the first few days, but this gradually transformed into disapproving looks and frowns! We ignored all this and as the numbers around the tables increased the discussions became more boisterous interspersed with peals of laughter. The dissapprobating looks increased. And so did the laughter.
But what else could we do? Having completed our graduation we did take admisision to Post Graduation classes but were desperately hoping that Dame Luck would favour us, in order to get some opening somewhere.
Moreover these two restaurants were strategically positioned in the main road, from where one could get a very synoptic and bird’s eye view of all the friends and acquaitances. One of us entered first and broke the ice by ordering a cup of tea. If someone was fortunate enough to be a little more affluent we would order samosas! But more often than not we ordered more cups than the tea for, equal sharing and very egalitarian principles. Fundamentally this was due to the age-old economic adage of demand and supply. While the demand was very much present the supply was woefully short for simple pecuniary reasons – we did not have enough money. And that of course irked the owners no end, what with all the noise and thumping of tables. The irritation gradually became suppressed anger. And if one of the shops were full, we would enter the next one with smug, defiant looks. There were times when we even queued up waiting for customers to empty the seats and then usurped them! A cup of tea cost one rupee those days and a samosa around two rupees.
I am talking of the eighties. Soon we decided that we should legitimise our stay! Then began quiz sessions, General Knowledge, discussios, which further prolonged our chat sessions! over cups that cheered but did not inebriate . . .
Both the owners by now looked visibly shaken and disturbed if not angry. But our group continued the visits with elan.
One day apparently due to a crisis of shortage of coins one of the owners repaid the change in terms of the barter system; little pieces of what looked like carboard with donominations of 50 paisa, twenty five paisa, seventy five paisa etc neatly written on them. We winced at this setback and our eclat received a shattering blow.
A conspiracy was hatched. Never say die we said to our unflagging spirits. Let us collect all the ‘change’ (in pieces of paper) and repay whatever wev’e eaten!
We trooped into the restaurant one fine day with all the ‘change’. After finishing the snacks of tea and samosas, armed with the simulated coins which the owner had himself ‘paid’ us; we paid him back in his same ‘coin (s)’!!