Forming a cult was my last post and any guesses who would have loved to be partnering me other than many of you my pals who wanted to? Scorp! Scorp’s my cuz who is my only platonic love. Oh yes he would have loved all that and even though a born and brought up US citizen he loves his kingfisher beer! This is how Scorp and I began...

Scorp decided to do his college in India and to convince his forward thinking, US-is-the-best dad that India is where he wants to be – he even smeared ash on his forehead and prayed to all our umpteen gods and goddesses. That’s another reason why Scorp’s special he wanted to come to India from the US.

By the way, the reason to do this was not because of our country’s great education but merely because he saw how colorful and fun my family was. Four cousins all as quirky as can be and surprisingly he was goody-goody in the US - good grades, had no problems, played the violin, loved sports and was quite a regular American kid with brown skin.

Back then my house was filled with four opinionated youngsters who bunked classes brought takeaways and watched movies on video. My sisters were there and being considerably older they were at the height of their bitchiness and barbed talks. To Scorp this was all so new and tantalizing – it was like three Veronica Lodges and one wannabe meeting Scorp’s parched for fun good boy.

As you can imagine we brought out his real self and thank god and I secretly think he is glad too or else he would have become like aunt Agatha’s sons-in-laws – who have been pickled deep in sweetness by their wives and mom-in-law that they have lost their index of swear words for good! Thinking of Scorp like that gives me the shivers...!

I was in high school and Scorp was about to join college and needless to say we hit it off like never before. This was all just after Scorp’s ash-smearing episode in the US. By the way after getting to India and changing girl friends in quick succession he was the king in his college. We caught up on weekends and exchanged stories of our flings and crushes over kingfishers smuggled in without the elder's knowledge. Them sisters were out of the house by then.

Our cook-cum-driver, Steely Stare, who was in the house before I came into the world was a tell-tale and he was always suspicious about what was in Scorp’s bag. Don’t get him wrong he was concerned and loved all of us but he had assigned himself the job of a bouncer. Any guy who walks by would get his steely stare and with four girls in the house who did whatever they pleased, he had loads to do over the years.

One particular evening actually it was 10 pm or so and Steely Stare was busy digging the garden to make a lotus pond. He had enlisted another guy for help, I knew Scorp was arriving with 7 Kingfishers in his bag and we would hide them in the freezer so that no one would see it.
But there was Steely Stare to get by, I soon spotted Scorp at the gate and there he was lumbering in with his Umbro shorts and baseball cap lugging the bag, which was going “Cling-Clang”

I talked furiously to Steely Stare glaring at Scorp for being so clumsy and kept making them talk and even put a bet on the two as to who will dig his side faster. I cheered them saying Steely Stare is losing and siding the other guy so that he will be busy. Scorp managed to get inside, hide the booty in the freezer while I took off with two bottles to begin our fun times. Scorp humored Steely Stare and came back after 20 minutes laughing uncontrollably!

Steely Stare had seen right through me and had taken 10 ciggis and the promise of more tens of ciggis and even 555s from Scorp when he would return from the US next to keep the secret. Scorp was good at bribing he had a secret flow of dollars steadily from hs mom who loved him to bits. She actually funded all our fun and bribes, god bless her!

By the way all the ash smearing and praying continued for a year and today Scorp’s an atheist and even boasting about it! I on the other hand am still waiting for a sign for one way or another.

Kingfisher is still a favorite with us and the dream is to shack up in a house with a lil fridge between us stocked up with the “most thrilling chilled” babies and watching movies we like. Scorp also got into Kingfisher airlines for his medical tourism special journey. Kingfisher remains our panacea - for all heartbreaks, boredom and is the catalyst to all the plans we hatch to spook the family to this day!