THE ARCHITECT FROM MANCHESTER

Let us call him Steven. For the record, he had a last name too, but my chronically unreliable memory fails me once again and I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was. You know how it is when you forget a name. It rolls teasingly on the tip of your tongue but the stubborn brain refuses to remember it leaving you searching for it obsessively the entire day. And when you finally do remember it, it leaves you with a strange feeling. Somewhere between the feeling of attaining nirvana and the relief after an emergency visit to the loo. Anyway, I am digressing here. What I remember about Steven's last name though, is that it sounded suspiciously similar to an embarrassing vernacular word.
We met Steven on the final day of our college festival, wandering around the city with a faint whiff of whiskey around him and a goofy smile plastered across his face. We could not tell with authority whether he was drunk or not but since he could, more or less, maintain a coherent conversation, we assumed he was sober. He was tall and ungainly and walked around with such a stooping gait that it was a miracle that he didn't fall over at every step. His posture suggested that he had just been ordered to do a 15-km march under the hot sun. But before you jump to any conclusions, let me assure you that he wasn't feeling miserable at all. On the contrary he was in high spirits. The smile on his face would have launched a million toothpaste brands (if not ships), were it not for the minor problem of Steven owning a set of magnificently crooked teeth. This was Steven's first visit to India and he had taken a liking for it inspite of an entire night spent in a railway station, with an army of mosquitoes which almost threatened to carry him off. So, it didn't take much to persuade him to stay in our hostel for the night. This, obviously, was an entirely unofficial arrangement, which the hostel superintendent did not have an inkling of.
Steven really enjoyed himself that night with booze, joints and a stunning performance by Motherjane. Students at the college would later speak of a tall, blond, foreigner who went about greeting everybody with a namaskar in a totally inebriated state. We, of course, feigned ignorance. Steven extended his stay with us for a couple of days, enjoying his brief sojourn in our hostel. During this time, he discussed a lot about his life with us. He was an young architect from Manchester who had taken a break for sometime to explore the Indian subcontinent. He didn't want it to be one of those daintily packaged tours with complementary breakfast and dinner. No sir, he wanted a first-hand experience of one of the oldest cultures of the world. The two days he shared with us were enough for him to build up a strong camaraderie with every one...... well, except the hostel dog. To say that Steven hated the dog would be putting it too mildly. But to his defence, one must concede that the intolerance was mutual. Rocky, the dog, went mad every time he smelt Steven somewhere near. Maybe the sight of a tall, reed-thin, Caucasian was too much for the black, pudgy, vertically-challenged mongrel to handle. Not that Rocky was racist or anything but the mere sight of Steven gave him an inferiority complex.
Before Steven left the hostel in search of more colourful adventures, he told us that he intended to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan.....on a donkey. We thought that it was a ridiculously absurd idea and tried to make him understand the danger involved with this particular campaign. But Steven thought it would be fantastic. And though he appreciated our concern, we knew that he would not relent. During the next few weeks, Steven sent us occasional mails updating us about his whereabouts. But about six weeks later the mails suddenly stopped coming. We thought that Steven finally had enough of travelling and had gone back home to England. But we were completely wrong; our modern Marco Polo had attempted to enter the north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh without a proper permit and, after a slight misunderstanding, was promptly arrested. He was released after a week and since it was not quite a sensational issue, the media did not attach much importance to it. The newspapers reported it almost as an afterthought, in unassuming little 50-words side columns in which they did not even mention any names. But we knew very well that it was old Steven who was involved, especially when we read the last two lines of the report in one of the newspapers. It said "The foreigner also had a donkey with him when he was arrested. It was later handed over to him after his release."