Eating Out

Antara: What do you want?

Me: Anything without chlorophyll and with lots of blood.

Antara: I don’t eat animals. I cannot kill.

We settle for harabhara kebabs and shami kebabs. I want my Bacardi with Coke.

Antara: (Examining the kebab) It’s not so hara, it’s brown. It’s not even bhara, it’s flat.

Me: Your Makhmali song from Road is scorching the air.

Antara: You like my hair?

Me: My wife thinks you are HOT.

Antara: When did she see my hair?

Me: I’m talking about the song.

Antara: I’m talking about my hair.

Me: Looks good. (Antara is more serene than what she was six years ago when I first met her) You have sobered down.

Antara: I have evolved. Earlier I had a lot of angst. My intensity was all over the place, now it’s getting channelled into my work.

It’s time for the main course. There’s a Chicken Mexicaine for me with jacket potatoes and I wonder what’s it they call the jacket—the skin or the foil. Some steamed green vegetables, kadhai paneer for her and some Goan fish curry and steamed rice. My chicken is excellent. The fish curry is tangier than the one I had in Goa.

Antara: You are 70, dying in your bed and ask yourself what did you do in your life. ‘Oh I played safe’—that’s not the way I want to live. I want to do more challenging stuff, more risky roles. Why is it that only Ram Gopal Verma makes ballsy films?

Me: (Excuse me) There is me. (My pride is hurt)

Antara: Oh! I’m doing your next, na.

Me: (Still hurt) How was the food?

Antara: Great.

Me: (These herbivores, there’s no meat in their compliments). I thought the chicken really rocked. Free food, great food. And great company. What more can one ask for? Thinking, I trot out of Gallop.