Fresh Fodder

Banoo Apa's recipe for Gupta's flights of fancy

Bijoy Gupta found fresh fodder for his ongoing tirade against best buddy Shekhawat. Last evening, by some strange coincidence, they bumped into each other in the waiting room of a doctor. Both were with their wives. It was a crowded place; still, Gupta tried to draw his friend’s attention. But Shekhawat looked through pretending he did not recognise Gupta. Only while leaving the clinic, he waved goodbye and disappeared with his wife.
Gupta has not forgiven Shekhawat since. He ranted on the phone with friends over Shekhawat treating him badly at the doctor's clinic and then spent a

Best of buddies: Shekhawat and Gupta

sleepless night plotting his revenge. In the morning today, Banoo Apa provided him the perfect recipe for getting back at Shekhawat.
She had come carrying a bulky bag – obviously containing a flask of tea and paper cups. (It turned out to be lassi.) But that made no difference to Gupta. He announced off-hand while the exercises were on that Shekhawat would require an extra cup of tea today because a ‘guest’, who he was too afraid to introduce to us, has been kept waiting outside the Garden.
“Banoo Apa, don't forget to prepare two cups for Shekhawat,” he urged.
“I don’t drink tea,” Shekhawat snapped.
“Doesn’t matter,” Gupta retorted. “She can have two cups then.”
Shekhawat ignored him. But Gupta was not letting go. “Why don’t you call her inside the Garden?” he needled. “Why keep the poor thing waiting outside the gate? We are decent people from respectable families. Besides, we won’t tell her a thing about you.”
Even as we knew that the so-called guest was a figment of Gupta’s imagination, nobody could resist the temptation of stealing an occasional glance at the gate. Shekhawat however, was nonchalant. He quite understood where Gupta was coming from and why he went on spinning bizarre tales (too lurid to be published here) about his relationship with a female who did not exist.
In the end, the two friends were seen hobnobbing under a tree.