Kunal's heroics

March 7, 2020 (Saturday) We had an evening gathering at Kanu’s house in New Providence Wharf. It started off on the right note, as I was able to get free parking (using Shobhit and Swati’s unutilised parking space) whereas in the last couple of years or so I have had to pay (£10 for over 4 hours). The guests today were Kunal, Ashwani, Kaushal (KT), Ankur, Vasu, Sneha, her friend Manan who is visiting from Mumbai, and Mishti and I. The food selection that was spread out was lavish and customised, and would have alone been enough to make it all worth it, even if a single word had not been uttered all evening. And this in spite of Kanu stating that she hadn’t gone the whole hog this time and kept it simple. There was fresh edamame for starters, along with French Fries, dahi wada and feteer like the ones we had had in Jordan recently. Then there was vada-paav, with the right chutney and masalas to remind us of Mumbai. It was a meal fit for a king, or at least a Maratha warrior. And there were at least three desserts on offer (chocolate cheesecake, chocolate brownie and vanilla ice cream, and mango and kesar pista kulfi), of which I chose the mango kulfi. We talked, gossiped and laughed before the noise levels got higher while playing Mafia. Coronavirus has gone viral recently and has become all-the-rage. We discussed our companies’ business continuity plans (split rotation where teams are divided into halves and one half works in the office and the other from home or a back-up site on a rotation basis, social distancing and so on). It was clear that the situation was chaotic and the disaster recovery planning of banks did not really envisage a situation such as this. Separately, Ola (the cab service company similar to Uber) has launched in UK and I was trying to peddle the app to the others, like a huckster at a carnival. Rather unsuccessfully, but full marks for persistence. My referral bonus of £10 per person seemed rather elusive. Ashwani was in the limelight today. He has recently had his roka ceremony with Bharkha in Mumbai. She is a doctor. We wondered loudly why she had said yes to him. He calls me ‘luv guru’ and I had some advice for him. She is going to visit him for 10 days in London, and I told him that he should quarantine himself for 10 days and let her mingle with all of us instead – to maximise his chances. (With the coronavirus Covid 19 epidemic, there is currently a lot of talk and some action of quarantining whole sections of populations in many countries.) I asked him if she plays badminton and he said no. I said ‘tu bhi tho nahin khelta hai’ (you also don’t know to play) and told him to bring her for one of our sessions. We played Mafia after a while and it was enjoyable, even though we played only two games. After Sneha had explained the rules to Manan, I told him to observe me and learn. Mishti, as usual, was part of mafia on both games (somehow she almost always seems to pull out the Mafia chit and it part of the folklore now). She held her nerve in the second game which she won almost single-handedly as the other mafia were voted out at the beginning itself. I was also part of mafia on both rounds, but this was not my finest hour. I shuffled each time at the very beginning when we had to decide on a villager to kill, and Sneha who was sitting next to me called me out. I got voted out in the first round each time and had little to say for myself. I was disappointed that I had not played like the true professional that I was in this game. Even though I could not participate after being voted out, I kept shuffling each time after that, just to annoy Sneha. Kunal sometimes plays strangely in poker and in Mafia. Today in one of the games when the voting round was going on, he agreed with everybody else and voted himself out. I told him ‘tu mara nahin, tu shaheed ho gaya.’ After mafia, we talked for a couple of hours. Around midnight, Kanu snoozed on the floor and Ashwani dared to wake her up. She was less than impressed and took away his phone and jacket to punish him. He would have to pick them up at badminton tomorrow.