Osmania Biscuit XII part III: The Escape

It was precisely during these tumultous times that Lingam visited MBNR. He quickly grasped the situation and resolved to resolve it. After giving it a lot of thought, he decided that it was not worth so much though, and he went straight to Satyam's Lair and demanded admittance, which, he was very ungraciously denied even with the yadav-yadav connection. There are very moments when Lingam had to endure insult, and this was one of them. Red-faced, Lingam returned home.

In the evening, he went with nagaraj and his friends to Munawwar Dhaba. He was still fuming with anger, which kept flaring up and spewing out-bursts of atrocities in MBNR, and he didnt mind liberally sprinkling it with expletives. Now, Munawwar Dhaba has its share of frequenters, and some of them were Satyam's informers. They were watching this "non-local" fellow uttering things that are best left unsaid against their don. Their patience hit the limit when Lingam called "Erra Satyam" nothing more than "PacchAbaddham." Oh they got the pun alright! The next day, they went and told all this to the two fiercest gundas of Satyam, and it was was reputed that Satyam imported them from "the land down under"-- ThondamAn and PAlathondamAn. Incidentally, both of them were twins. Since they didnt know any other language than tamizh (albeit, they knew a little bit of telugu because of their training in carnatic music), these people had a tough time explaing the insulting part of the pun by Lingam. And when they did understand the pun, they simply couldnt get what was so insulting about it. Apparently, the localites convinced them that it was a big deal in MBNR. So the twins shrugged and took up the case and went straight to Nagaraj's place to settle things.

Now, the previous night, there were others who had listened to Lingam's fiery words. One of them apparently followed them and he knocked the door. Nagaraj invited him in, and he said he could become a friend of his and Lingam's if they were willing to help him out. He told them that Satyam's men were at Munawwar and heard what he said. He also told them about the twins, who had all MBNR shaken up. They came to know afterwards that he wanted to utilise this schism between yadavs. Nagaraj was swayed a bit by this talk, but Lingam was totally against what he calls as "groupisms". He offered him, some of his choicest expletives, and drove him out. It turns out that the guy was one of the stand-by people being trained for a sinister purpose of murdering Satyam. He was not among the chosen six, but if something happens to any one of the six, he was one of them posed to take the place as a replacement. And so, Lingam incurred the wrath of the Anti-Satyam camp as well, and they wanted to teach him a lesson too.

Early in the morning, the ThondamAn, and PAlathondamAn turned up at Nagaraj's hourse and knocked the door, and asked him to come out. Now, since both of them are twins, there are some problems with twins when they are not giuded by Satyam on what to say:
1) Both of them talk at the same time,
2) Both of them say exactly opposite things.

Only when they talk to one-another, they say the exact same words to each other. Of course, both of them still talk at the same time. It seems it is a congenital disorder.

No wonder that it looked like some inane blabber. The only solace was that they were speaking in Tamizh, and no Telugu, so no one understood what they were saying (Some people from Andhra think that if one has "pAn" and talk, whatever one says will seem like Tamizh). Nevertheless, it was all in vain, as Lingam and Co had already vanished from their home before sun-rise. But the twins got the wind of their route and took off after them. Lingam and Co. were hard put to it, because the hunt was closer than expected, and so they went off the road into the wild. Finally, by the evening, the three reached Jadcherla, and got into a bus to Hyd.

The twins were close in pursuit, but they missed these people only by a few minutes. Suddenly, both of them said "We are getting aggravated" in a language they hardly knew. They pondered about what they said just then, and why they said it, but as usual, shrugged it off, and started singing an alapana in Gummakambhoji to pass time (This raga is said to have unordinary powers, though its potential is largely unutilised). They knew these people would go to Hyderabad, and were weighing their options when they were recalled by Satyam's men. They had more pressing problems at hand.

Meanwhile, Lingam, along with Nagaraj and Vaasuki, was on his way to Hyderabad, to safety he thought, but his fate had something totally different in store for him. Is it out of the frying pan, into the fire for Lingam?