Yesterday, this friend of mine and I decided to do lunch. And not our usual Guru da Dhaba lunch, but buffet lunch with booze and soup and salad and hors d’oeuvres and entrees and desserts.
Since it is the middle of the month, naturally we are broke. Enter Ubuntu. Some of you may have seen it. It’s opposite YRF studios, in the lane off Babalji Telefilms, exiting onto the Link Road. It has intrigued me since the day it opened. I’ve always imagined it to be like a Carnivore-eat-all-you-can-turn-the-flag-upside-down-when-done type of place.
But apparently, it was only me that the restaurant intrigued because it failed to take off. In order to boost traffic they have recently started advertising a lunch buffet of Rs 299 including a free alcoholic beverage and taxes.
So it was decided that we’d meet at Ubuntu. The challenge was to get there and sidle in quickly because neither one wanted to be seen at the loser eaterie. And, of course neither of us wanted to be seen there alone. So we made a pact.
Since we are both more or less equi-distant from the place, we’d call each other the moment we hopped into an auto so that both would be spared the ignominy of arriving there early.
Accordingly, my friend called in at ten to one to say that she’d got a rickshaw. I figured I’d give it another five minutes and hail one down myself. After all she would have to traverse the tricky Link road where there’s no accounting for traffic.
I had almost flagged down an auto when it occurred to me that a section of the Link Road is being dug up. So I hastily snatched back my arm, called my friend that I was two minutes away and started walking. Any minute, I expected my friend to make a pissed off call demanding to know where I was. So, when I was at Balaji, and the call still didn’t come, I decided to do the honours.
“Where the fuck are you?” I began crossly. “I’ve been here ages!”
“Um, I got stuck in traffic,” she said. “I’m almost there.”
I disconnected and turned into the Ubuntu lane and who should I see? My friend strolling in from Fun Republic! We both grinned at each other sheepishly and walked up to the maitre d’ and guess what? Somewhere down the line, the loser eaterie had become a happening one and they were full up! *Sigh* It was back to Guru the dhaba and good old fashioned home cooked Punjabi fare.
When tall, suave, handsome Kaustav Kapoor walks into her office, ditzy private investigator Kasthuri (aka Katie) Kumar has anything but detection on her mind. He is, after all, a scion of Bollywood’s first family—perhaps he has a role for her? Perhaps she will, at last, get to sashay down the red carpet in a designer gown, with flash bulbs following her every move?
But Kapoor’s intentions are much more prosaic: he wishes Katie to trace the heroine of his new blockbuster (and, if Katie’s read the glossies correctly, his life) who is mysteriously AWOL. Despite her misgivings, Katie finds herself unable to refuse the task entrusted to her, and thereon follows a bewildering hunt for the film star across a trail of corpses.
And if that isn’t excitement enough, she has to contend with the maddening and mysterious, but, oh-so-hot, Tejas Deshpande.
The first in a brand new detective series.
IN BOOKSTORES NOW.
Smita Jain's Weblog 