Actually Q has been doubling as M.O.T.H.E.R. Anyway the tale of last Sunday.
My idea was to explore a spot that one could hit often and fast. Something less than spending six hours driving and two hours fishing and so the location was very tempting. Purists from the Indian Angler had said that it had Magur and it was heavily netted and so there would be no action. But I had been feeling very good after my second coffee and when I added the vanilla essence to the bread paste, I felt as if a powerful secret had been handed to me, like the shaolin one inch punch. Man it smelt good all over the kitchen and suddenly I had visions of making my illegal fortune on vanilla perfume.
So after debating about having a sandwich...debate won by Krypto who had suckered me into letting him have the last five pieces, I grabbed an apple and examined my rod. I felt pretty pumped about having taken tips from the good Doc on bait and strategy.
The only area where I was worried was my tackle where I had loaded a new 15 pound line, looking at it I felt that the magur would be begging for mercy. I was totally stumped with the Doc's question of whether my line was loaded in the direction that the tackle was supposed to spin etc. Now, as in all things that I didn't understand in life or found to difficult to strain my limited grey cells on...I bleeped the thought out of my mind. The Doc had also recommended trying out a few casts in the dark but I was worried about my already poor EQ in the neighbourhood.
So I picked up the rod with both my hands and did the power warrior thing by hoisting it over my head and screaming Geronimo. Then SWAMBO completed the ritual by letting me have it with the broom till I fled from the door to the jeep(I had interrupted her massage and Krypto had let out a terrible howl, so she added her imagination and thought I had done a mischief to him).
Speeded down the highway with the old Mahindra pretending to be turbo charged, like all Delhi ites I had promised to meet Anupam at Siri Fort in Panj Minute. The poor soul was always punctual to a T and never made concessions to himself even on a Sunday. In between 'dances with fish' was sorely tempted to come (yes his back was sore)
. We had been at it on the hand telly, messaging away like college kids, till I played spoil t sport and called him.
His gravely black cat voice was almost sand paper rasping on wood as he spoke of further misfortune. Some nut had thwapped his beautiful Honda CRV, I wept in sympathy and moved on...I had to be strong.
I reached Siri Fort and picked up Anupam who forgave my delay by devastating me with the news that he had picked up even more gyan from the good Doc by visiting him at Noida. But I knew that day my medicine was good cause I had had visions of the fillet-of-fish burger while driving. So I drove in silence cause a little talkie and I forget where I am going most times.
In a few panj minutes we screeched into the forest path near the pond. As the wheels stopped turning Anupam and I had somersaulted from our seats, kicked a few trees on the way to change direction and cast our lines from mid air. That was the John Woo version the real one i what normally happens. Anupam took out his telescopic 'shakespeare' rod and cast with atta. I was giving him the cool-' know it all'- looks and desperately thinking jeez, who's gonna tie my knot now? The Doc used to do all my first hook tieing anyway I looked unflappable as I did the legendary blood knot. I tried a number 8 or so hook as I had read enough fishing lore about really big mothers being caught on small hooks and not the other way around.
Then I attached a 'kps gill' lead weight, you have squeeze its butt with your thumb to get it to open its jaws. And a round float and then I baited it with the Doc's special. 'Aha'- so the cast sails thru to about twenty meters, by some fluke I had got the loading the line thing right. I was so pleased that the cast was right that I didn't notice Abhijeet's entry. I was soon amazed at his kit as he also got his rod ready and cast away. I am convinced that he has a stake in a certain brewery as he generously helped us to get the right nutrients back (we had begun to sweat it up) with a hopp beverage. And then I spied my bobber going down, so I struck as advised before by Shri Bana but the line went limp. I reeled it in to discover the bait gone. Hey Doc! Thy bait really works! And so I baited it again and told Anupam to ditch the atta, I had the magical stuff. By now we got regular bites with the score being fish 3, visitors 0.
A little later, the spirit of the hopp beverage entered me... I was lost in the shamanistic experience of sitting with two friends and having the time of my life with them. Suddenly dream time ended and I realized that Abhijeet had motivated some chaps to bring us earthworms. So we did the," are you man enough"- thing of attaching earthworms to our hooks (yeccch). We were so bad at it that a local did it for us; this inspired Abhijeet to narrate a story about how a frog would be used as bait. This had as falling over stumps and grass in slow motion as we laughed ourselves silly.
Then after a few casts we realized something (imagine the tune from jaws)...the blasted fish broke my fifteen pound line without even me realizing it. I had heard of such things but now a shiver ran up my spine. That be some real mean beef out there. So I, Anupam and Abhijeet quickly hightailed it outa the spot. We had gotten away with our lives from the Atomic Magur!
Need to come back next week with stronger line, but I understand what Rusty meant about the right casting weight. Will need to get the Doc and Dances with fish involved. Till then its the nearest Mac Donalds, heck visions are meant to be realised aren't they
.
Thank you for wasting your time reading this outlandishly long post.
Dev
