He gripped the handlebars of my bicycle firmly and began dragging it along the sand, giving me no choice but to jump off in a singularly ungraceful manner and trail along behind him, protesting. To his credit, he did have some good ideas about the script and we ended up getting into an involved discussion and totally lost track of time. It was time for dinner by the time we finished, and I headed for the restaurant to look for Yudi. For some strange reason I was feeling worried about the guy; I’d been unable to erase the image of him shooting off into the setting sun on his jet ski, like a cowboy riding into the sunset from one of those Wild Wild West movies, and I was hoping I’d run into him at the restaurant. I was greeted by a colourful banner at the entrance: ‘Rajasthani Food Festival’. On stepping inside I could see that when the Park Splenda did a themed dinner it meant business. The dining area had been converted into a mini-village, complete with earthen platters on the dining tables, waiters dressed in traditional Rajasthani costumes replete with headgear and even a palm reader doing his thing under a makeshift Khejri tree in the corner. I spotted Yudi almost immediately, seated alone at a corner table next to the palm reader, and I headed towards him, deftly avoiding a head-on collision with Puru who was weaving his way towards the malpua counter with great gusto.

‘Hey! Mind if I join you?’ I said, reaching Yudi’s table and giving him what I hoped was a casual and not totally desperate please-let-me-join-you smile. He looked up with a scowl, a frown marring his near-perfect features, but on catching sight of me seemed to change his mind and nodded briefly. I perched on the chair next to him, and placing an order for fresh lime soda with the waiter who’d magically materialized at my elbow, settled down to take stock of the immediate surroundings. The table right next to us was occupied by a raucous bunch of GF sales veterans and as I watched, Puru floated up to them bearing a plate overflowing with malpua and placed it in the centre of the table with a reverential look on his face.

‘Hey Yudi,’ I hissed, without taking my eyes off Puru, ‘watch! A Puru performance is coming your way!’ We both watched—me with bated breath, for I’d watched one of these performances before—as Puru lovingly polished off the generous helping of malpua he had heaped on his own plate from the booty placed in the centre. He chewed each morsel slowly and blissfully, eyes closed, pausing only to smack his lips and bring his fingers to his mouth occasionally for a few reverential licks. A few seconds later the plate was licked clean, all traces of malpua gone. Puru began looking nervously at the malpua still sitting pretty in the centre of the table; around him the sales guys continued their loud banter oblivious of the dilemma their leader was in. The guy sitting beside Puru said something to him and clapped him on the back. Puru gave a nervous giggle, his eyes still on the malpua. His jaw began moving rhythmically; and the observant spectator with sharp ears would’ve caught the sound of teeth grinding in the background. Slowly, as if they had a mind of their own, the fingers of Puru’s right hand began inching their way towards the centre of the table. His eyes flashed this way and that, his lips twitching occasionally into a nervous grimace. Suddenly the fingers reached their destination and closed around the large plate bearing the rest of the malpua. With a sharp movement, the fingers jerked the entire plate towards Puru, grabbed large chunks of the malpua and shovelled them into his mouth, where his jaws, alert to the call of duty, stopped their grinding and moved on to more noble things. It was all over within a matter of seconds, and with something between a grunt and a moan, Puru leaned back and closed his eyes, the last morsel of malpua dispatched to its final destination.