As I knocked at the door, I noticed a colourful pamphlet tucked under the door handle. The pamphlet was folded strategically to remain stuck under the handle until someone retrieved it deliberately. Well, it was the door to my house, and so I grabbed the pamphlet. Before I could start reading it, Rani opened the door. We both looked at the pamphlet with curiosity. The multi-page pamphlet on its cover bore the name and phone number of a restaurant. It promised ‘free home delivery’ of Thai, Chinese and Indian food.
Interested, we opened the pamphlet. This restaurant served over hundred variants of food! Usually some price is mentioned for each dish in such pamphlets, but this one was unique. It revealed no price!
We returned to the cover page. The restaurant appeared to be located nearby. I called up my colleague who has been staying in the area for donkey’s years. He very patiently advised me to get out of my house, turn left, and keep going straight for three kilometres to reach the place through Ramachandrapura.
Rani and I were excited. Why not visit this place during our evening walk? Determined, we came out of the house, and took left. Rani and I do not like that particular stretch of road. It does not have footpath, and the traffic is substantial. One cannot enjoy a leisurely walk on such roads.
We turned back, deciding to reach the end of the road through another route, lined with tall trees full of purple, white, and yellow flowers. Half our way through, we noticed a boulevard parallel to the road suggested by my colleague.
“Why not take this road? After all, the two roads are parallel and one can always take a cross road to reach the intended one”, said Rani. Reading the doubt in my eyes, she added, “Okay! I will ask someone to be sure”. She asked a person who appeared to be walking back home after a day at office. The person confirmed that the road indeed led to the locality intended.
“Dekkkha?”, Rani exclaimed with joy, and we started walking. Walking on that road was a pleasure. Palatial bungalows. Wide footpaths. Trees. Smell of clean air. We liked it for about twenty minutes, and then began a series of shops and residential buildings.
“Ah, look there, to your right!”, I pointed towards a decent government priced foreign liquor shop. We almost halted. “From the looks of it I can say that one can get genuine scotch and wine here”, I declared.
“Shall we walk up the stairs and check?”, asked Rani.
I was in two minds. Meanwhile, two persons started looking at us from the shop.
“Well, it would not be correct to enter the shop and enquire about a lot of things when we don’t have to buy anything now”, we agreed and resumed walking after making a mental note of the shop.
Another ten-minute stroll, and we were at a ‘T’ junction. By this time daylight had almost disappeared. We were nowhere near our destination, and didn’t even know where to find it. We had walked more than three kilometres. Luckily, most of it had been downhill.
I decided to abandon our quest and return home.
Rani checked up with another person. She was still hopeful of finding the place.
The person advised us to continue for another two kilometres and then take left to reach Ramachandrapura.
“Will you care for a samosa?”, I asked, exploiting her weakness for junk food.
“No, I am fine”.
So be it. We resumed walking.
Another ten minutes, and we saw a Maruti service station.
“We can buy the door knob here!”, we exclaimed in unison.
The broken knob lay in my pocket. It had come out in two pieces a few days ago. I had both the pieces with me. I entered the workshop, taking the broken pieces out. As I reached the door of the shop, one piece fell down and vanished somewhere. The remaining piece was sufficient for the shopkeeper to identify the desired knob and sell it to me for a princely sum of Rs.5.
We were happy. So what if we could not locate the restaurant? We had been successful in finding a decent wine shop which we would not have seen otherwise. And, we had also been able to buy the door knob, which was not available in other markets.
We walked with greater determination, and reached another ‘T’ junction. The signboards here proclaimed the name of the locality we had set out for.
“This is Block One. The restaurant is in Block Five.” Rani observed.
We took right, walking half a kilometre. Block One, like a faithful companion, continued.
“We will walk up to that red billboard and then return”, I declared.
The red billboard, too, happened to be in Block One. Perhaps Block Five was another two kilometres away.
We turned around, walking back uphill for forty five minutes, to reach home.
“I wonder how the restaurant delivers the food thus far”, I expressed my worry.
“The restaurant man does not come walking”, Rani said.
“Yes, he will not come walking”, I agreed. “And we will not walk to that place again”, I said, examining the door knob carefully.
Rani agreed. Our two-and-a-half hour long walk must have done us some good, we thought, and collapsed on the bed, exhausted.
We have not talked about that restaurant since then.
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