A Conversation and An Incomplete Detective Story

I met Mr.X a couple of weeks back at a smoky joint. We meet at irregular intervals to eat an elaborate meal and talk. Usually we talk ideas (methods of peaceful submission to death, ways to beat forgetfulness, how to keep in shape without dieting etc) and mostly about the deadline of extinction of the human race. Sometimes we discuss women and very rarely children and pornography. We also talk a lot about cricket and football and nowadays about badminton (pursuant to the consist performance of Saina Nehwal).
I am going to now reproduce the conversation from memory that I had with this man in the dimly-lit joint. While we talked (that night) there was no distracting music playing at the eatery. There was no much noise barring the whirring of the air-conditioners, the movement of the waiters, waiters talking to each other and other guests and the people eating or waiting for food talking to each other in hush-hush tones and the general cling-clong of cutlery. The absence of loud sounds, whether pleasant or unpleasant, helped me to focus all my energies to the occasion, especially the conversation. There have been other instances when we have been witness (of visual and audio type) to a brawl (between an arrogant waiter and a hyper anorexic salesman), a quarrel (between two aged fat men over what to order for dessert), a hot bombshell (in a pink top and a black skirt) and rendition of rock-and-roll music (1967 April number) on an ancient sound system: all highly disturbing and infringing experiences. The conversation (the one I referred to) went something like this –

I: You look thoughtful; no, I mean clouded with dark thoughts; so much so that you are actually looking dark!
Mr.X: It’s not untrue; my appetite has gone done. I don’t think about sex any more. I don’t fanaticize. I feel very tense, you know.
I: Tense? Tense about what? About losing your balls, you mean?
Mr.X: Do I have my balls at the right place; I’m not so sure? I’m actually anxious about my son.
I: Why; what has he done: fallen in love with your house-maid or what? Both of you are in competition, is it?
Mr.X: Be serious Mr.Y for a change! If I die now what will happen to my son; have you ever thought about that?
I: You expect me to think over such top-class shit. Are you truly contemplating suicide? Disappearance for a change: I mean something like that?
Mr.X: Suppose if I die a natural death: my heart just stops pumping all of a sudden. My son is a teenager. He does not have a mother or family support from my side or hers. Where does he go for his upbringing? He would be left absolutely lonely after I die. An orphan almost! Last night I cried a lot holding him to my chest; the funny part is he felt suffocated and advised me to consult a psychiatrist. I did not sleep the whole night. I saw him sleeping and snoring so beautifully. He has an angelic face, surely an angelic face Mr.Y!
I: What can you do about dieing? When it is time to go you go, not a bit before or after. But you worry me: if you move away from erotica you die before you are actually dead.
Mr.X: I know that for sure. But I just feel horribly pensive with the thought of how lonely my son is already and how much lonelier he can get after I die.
I: You want to die?
Mr.X: No Mr.Y, I want to live, at least for the next 10 years by which time my son would have settled in life.

I: So you will live Mr.X! Lock yourself up in a balloon up in the air away from this heat, dust, smoke and fungus and bacteria and virus! And, above all, women, you idiot!
Mr.X: Do I take my son as well in this balloon?
I: You can.
Mr.X: What kind of a future does he have by spending a life in a balloon?
I: Then get him married to the youngest daughter of your house-maid. This way you will leave behind his wife and in-laws to take care of him in your absence.
Mr.X: You have come up with a very good idea; I must compliment the efforts of your brains Mr.Y. Marriage is a good way to extend your social base. But the marriage of the kind that you propose would be illegal. I don’t want my son to take law in his hands.
I: Stuff it up your ass Mr.X; you have a nice one.

My kind words about Mr.X’s butts lifted his spirits; the shadows on his face were gone and he ordered for keema parantha with methi-chicken.

Later in the night after dinner instead of bidding farewell at the gate of the restaurant, which we did otherwise (having paid a small tip to the mustachioed pot-bellied doorman from North India for saluting us), we set out for an adjoining park famous for its carnivorous insects and ants of all variety; lepers, beggars, drug addicts and dealers taking shelter within its unfolding darkness and dull-faced-sullen-ugly whores. This was because Mr.X demanded of me to tell him a detective story.

So I told him a detective story: The Chief Minister of a State wakes up soggy one rainy cloudy grey morning to find his face in the mirror irrevocably changed - precisely having been replaced by the face of the Leader of the Opposition. He does not shave or clean his teeth and tongue or discharge his turds; instead he phones the Home Secretary right away in a spell of shock urging him to leave all business and set up a task force of the best police officers in the State with the only agenda of finding out the terrorist-miscreant who had committed such a murderous act: cutting up his original face (which was liked by women of all cultures) followed by replacing it with a hateful face (which means that this face was amputated in the first place); and most importantly, to go all out in search of his original face. The thought upper-most in the Chief Minister’s mind ran thus – Was somebody already wearing it (his face) and buying a Honda Civic or was it (already pale and ever paling now that it was drained off its blood supply) cooling off in the refrigerator of a homicidal lunatic?

As the story unfolded chapter by chapter, taking Mr.X’s wholehearted attention within its layers, a planet burst into flames in the sky. Needless to say, we could not reach the concluding chapter of the story; instead we had Swirl designer ice-cream stuffed with fruits and nuts.