Many, many, many, many years back maybe about 10 of them, when I wallowed in filth and roamed around like a vagabond in search of something I [fathom] now as attainable, I came across these towers of RP-II. Though I still remember my favourite security guard at NIIT premises in IIT, Delhi was an old veteran named R.P. Singh sentimentally called R.P., the RP-II referred to here was Regency Park - II a famous residential location in Delhi NCR for residents with NRI antecedents. People who had Salad and Garlic bread for breakfast and Snickers for lunch, cursed the ordinary Indians for not knowing how to drive in lanes and was immune to the castes and creed culture in India. Little did I realise that in years to come I would join this angry band of causeless crusaders after my visits to London - read "Fun and more Fun" on this blog.
Any hows RP-II had these lovely towers shaped like a star with eight sprawling flats on each of its 14 floors except for the top floor that was a Double Decker penthouse. I think I must have been a mad hatter for I roamed the floors of this partially inhabited tower with my baby Jamaica. She was to be on leash as per the rules made by the royalty that ran the Residential Welfare Association but I think she was as "Crazy as a Bee" herself, hated the leash and would run on her four legs wagging her tail at everyone. In many ways she was much more like the other residents of the apartment complex than I was, you see she too didn't understand castes and creeds. She thrived on love, gave and took with gay abandon. She made her friends and through her I came to know other owners at RP - II. Though I don't think I owned Jamaica, she thought she owned me. I would run up and down the lift to various floors hoping to find people who were as carefree as we were.
Then something changed one night. She made a curious sniffle to wake me up, licked me and when I opened my eyes inquiringly, told you she thought she owned me, she nudged me to the exit. We took the lift to the 14th floor where there was an empty penthouse with a broken window next to door that allowed the door to be opened from the inside. Seemed like somebody had already been through the routine of testing the locks of this penthouse and had been successful at that too. I went in behind Jamaica to a ram shackled first floor. The sitting room had clutter that the previous owners had been negligent about and a door that led to a room on one side and to the east was the door to an equally empty derelict kitchen. When I tried to push open the door opposite to the kitchen it wouldn't budge. It was locked from the inside. I am a 6 feet strong able bodied human being but the door just withstood everything I gave it. Not used to failures, at least not during that phase in my life and after all I wouldn't wanna lose face in front of Jamaica who waited expectantly to sniff her way into a new territory, I looked at the window that opened to gaping fall of 14 floors to the ground floor. If I could open it and climb up the narrow ledge with a very tight crumbling grip for my hands and tiptoe about 4 feet over thin deadly air, remember the free fall of 14 floors,I would be at the window to the locked room. My mind was only thinking about the logic of it all when Jamaica virtually pushed me to the window. I quickly climbed up the window looked out into the gap and froze. The breeze was blowing up, it was a hot summer night and hot air rises and it ruffled my summer shirt. Just weeks before a girl had jumped off her balcony in RP-II and it hadn't been a pretty sight. Before my mind stopped working I quickly gripped the upper ledge with my two hands and stepped onto the narrow ledge beneath my feet and turned my back to "death" behind me. Scrambled the 4 feet in the quickest of time that seemed the longest, what was I thinking then, well practically nothing just a need to get over to the other window on to stable ground of the locked room. I think once you take the decision howsoever risky it might be you forget fear and get around to surmounting the seeming impossible. I thanked God that I was wearing shoes, as I quickly jumped into the locked room through the open window. I was trembling and panting and it had been the scariest four feet of my life. Like a proud father I opened the door to the room from the inside and Jamaica rushed in almost knocking me off my feet. As we traced our steps back to our flat on the ninth floor I would distinctly remember this momentous event all the rest of my life knowing now as I know that Death Doesn't Like to be Cheated.
Then something changed one night. She made a curious sniffle to wake me up, licked me and when I opened my eyes inquiringly, told you she thought she owned me, she nudged me to the exit. We took the lift to the 14th floor where there was an empty penthouse with a broken window next to door that allowed the door to be opened from the inside. Seemed like somebody had already been through the routine of testing the locks of this penthouse and had been successful at that too. I went in behind Jamaica to a ram shackled first floor. The sitting room had clutter that the previous owners had been negligent about and a door that led to a room on one side and to the east was the door to an equally empty derelict kitchen. When I tried to push open the door opposite to the kitchen it wouldn't budge. It was locked from the inside. I am a 6 feet strong able bodied human being but the door just withstood everything I gave it. Not used to failures, at least not during that phase in my life and after all I wouldn't wanna lose face in front of Jamaica who waited expectantly to sniff her way into a new territory, I looked at the window that opened to gaping fall of 14 floors to the ground floor. If I could open it and climb up the narrow ledge with a very tight crumbling grip for my hands and tiptoe about 4 feet over thin deadly air, remember the free fall of 14 floors,I would be at the window to the locked room. My mind was only thinking about the logic of it all when Jamaica virtually pushed me to the window. I quickly climbed up the window looked out into the gap and froze. The breeze was blowing up, it was a hot summer night and hot air rises and it ruffled my summer shirt. Just weeks before a girl had jumped off her balcony in RP-II and it hadn't been a pretty sight. Before my mind stopped working I quickly gripped the upper ledge with my two hands and stepped onto the narrow ledge beneath my feet and turned my back to "death" behind me. Scrambled the 4 feet in the quickest of time that seemed the longest, what was I thinking then, well practically nothing just a need to get over to the other window on to stable ground of the locked room. I think once you take the decision howsoever risky it might be you forget fear and get around to surmounting the seeming impossible. I thanked God that I was wearing shoes, as I quickly jumped into the locked room through the open window. I was trembling and panting and it had been the scariest four feet of my life. Like a proud father I opened the door to the room from the inside and Jamaica rushed in almost knocking me off my feet. As we traced our steps back to our flat on the ninth floor I would distinctly remember this momentous event all the rest of my life knowing now as I know that Death Doesn't Like to be Cheated.
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