The Tech Nut at IIT-G : Chapter 13

We now wanted to go to the city. Ma’am now ordered a taxi, for 600 bucks, for about 4 hours, to take us first to G.S.Road, for lunch and shopping, followed by a visit to Pan Bazaar, for more shopping.

The trip was fun. It was Aishwarya, Vishaka, Karthick, Shikhar and me. Although Shikhar is not the most sociable of people I’ve met, the others were fun. We talked a lot and played dumb charades as well. When we eventually reached G.S. Road, we were in for a shocker.

It was closed.

Now, I should remind you that G.S. Road is a big market, and that it was a Sunday, so ideally it should’ve been open! But it wasn’t. Luckily we found a restaurant…Khalsa Parivar. Quite Punjabi I must say. I should also say that I was quite disappointed that I had absolutely no Assamese traditional food on this trip. I’m a foodie to a certain extent, and would’ve liked to try out some of the local delicacies.

Lunch consisted of tandoori paranthas, dal makhni, paneer makhni and rice. Aishwarya also decided to muck up a glass of water. We put pepper, salt, toothpicks, dirty spoons from all the curries and god knows what else into the glass of water. I sipped a little bit of it, and since most of the stuff wasn’t in good enough quantities, the taste didn’t show up.

Then, we decided, that since G.S.Road was closed, we’d move onto Pan Bazaar. To go there, we had to go by the river port, and it was a beautiful view. I was enacting movies (dumb charades again) as and when they came to my mind, but only Bakri was listening/watching.

And that wasn’t the end of our problems.

Even Pan Bazaar was closed…

We were aghast. Our lovely little plan of enjoying Guwahati was coming apart. Bigtime. We quickly changed gears and thought of watching a movie. We all wanted to see Rock On! We asked the driver about the timings, and he said that shows generally began at around 5 PM. But, Hijack was the main movie being screened right now, and since most of Guwahati’s theatres were one-hall, that was the only movie being shown. The cinema near Pan Bazaar was showing Hijack. We assumed this since the posters outside were of Hijack.

Silly movie. Hollywood ripoff.

So we asked the driver to take us back to G.S.Road, because when we had come to Pizza Hut, we had seen a multiplex there. But, the driver, being an stubborn goat, wasn’t willing to take us there, unless we paid extra, which we weren’t willing to. In fact, he was asking for a total of 1200 bucks. We were stumped…

…or were we?

What I’m going to relate to you, is a perfect example counter-connery.

Soon after he asked for 1200 bucks, we realised that he must’ve known that Pan Bazaar was closed. And ma’am had specifically said that we were coming here for shopping. Even then, he didn’t have the decency to tell us that it was closed. All he was interested in was milking us for all it was worth.

Right

Plus, we hadn’t even expended our limit of 4 hours! Technically, we could take him to the ends of the earth within those 4 hours.

Anyway, ma’am called up the taxi stand manager, and started arguing with him. Ma’am said that we had mentioned that we needed to go shopping and despite that, the driver had not told us. When the guy on the other end heard this, he said that probably the driver didn’t know about the market being closed. But, he did, and had told us later, when he said that it was closed every Sunday. So, that was one exit blocked for both the driver and his manager.

The guy was becoming really stubborn now, so we decided to put our heads together. We told the driver that there was Aishwarya’s dad knew the Police Commissioner of Assam. Not quite true, but close enough, as her Dad did know someone in the Assam government. Anyway, hearing this, the driver’s got just a little bit more alert. Anyway, we pretended to call up this Police Commissioner, even apologised for the inconvenience caused to him, and ‘reported’ the errant driver. I even got out of the van to get the registration number!

Soon after, the driver related this to his manager. I could hear worried tones, event though I don’t understand Assamese. Hehe. So, the manager and driver eventually agreed to take us back to G.S. Road, for 400 bucks! They obviously didn’t want anything to do with the police. Vishaka used Shikhar’s phone, to call up ma’am, to make it seem that the Police Commissioner called back, and we informed him that the ‘problem had been sorted’.

By the way, Shikhar’s phone was working because he had a postpaid connection.

On the way, we checked out another multiplex, Fun Cinemas. Shikhar and I went to check, but the movie wasn’t showing there either. We proceeded to the one near which was the Pizza Hut, called Cinemax. The movie was showing there. We all rejoiced. But then, in that split second before the ticket seller responded, I realised…Oh shit…it could be house full.

It was.