Gautam Nadkarni

Ye Gods

A friend of mine has always been vociferous about the Hindu mystique. He has strong views on the concept of Hindutva and can tick off on his pinkies the various reasons for considering the faith in question superior to every other faith in the world.

The two of us had seated ourselves at a table in the Sri Krishna Bar when the conversation veered onto religion. It was when he was on his third single malt that he squinted fiercely and started quoting the Bhagavad Gita verbatim in the original Sanskrit. Without stumbling over a single syllable. I was amazed. I was positive he could recite “Gunga Din” backwards without a pause. I wasn’t even confident enough to pronounce my own name and all I’d had was a bottle of lager. I was seriously entertaining the thought that maybe there was something to the practice of Hinduism after all.

After the fifth large malt, however, my friend revealed his fascist leanings by suggesting we split the tab.

prayerful...
wondering how to hold up
my trousers