PAANCH POINT PETROL DAALO

A conference call with my childhood buddies on a non happening Saturday night reminded me of an epic phrase used in our school and early college days - "Paanch point petrol daalo" (Put 5 points petrol). A peculiarity of mine is that a Saturday night MUST have something happening - else it is one precious night wasted. Ok ? Anyway,in those days petrol bunks did not have digital counters, petrol cost 40 bucks, we were non earning 15-16 yr olds and SRK-Karan Johar combo sucked. These days petrol bunks have stylish digital counters, petrol costs 55 bucks and SRK-Karan Johar sucks even more. So yeah in the non digital days, 10 points(0.1,0.2... to 1.0) on the counter was equal to 1 Litre. And we had to go the grounds around 3-4kms away for a bet match. Obviously we couldn't walk down that distance. We had to take our dad's discarded bikes. I mean Chetaks, Kinetic Hondas and Priyas. That too triples (trikki in local lingo) because of the demand-supply inequality. Also a fact worth reiterating is that these Chetaks were exclusively for our use because their 45yr old dad drivable life was over and only rough and tough 15yr olds could handle it. We handled it with grace of a Laxman flick, style of a Sachin straight drive and economy of a Wasim Akram over. Since we had to take the shortest route in order to avoid the police mama,the 15 yr old Chetak was driven across many slums, untarred roads, shady dwellings and the likes one usually saw in the movies where 2 baddies exchanged briefcases after raping the hero's sister. All this was done trikki. A few enterprising pokiri kids from the neighbouring colony even went to the extent of performing stunts on the Chetaks to impress the 10th class girls in our colony. Sadly my dad had discarded his robust parrot green Chetak in 1997 for a non-spicy, dull Kinetic Honda, so I never really had a chance to change gears and become macho at 8th class.I think we have had enough background on the Chetaks.

So Sriram's dad had a green Chetak, Sharat's dad a blue and Shankar's dad a white. These were our primary modes of transport to the ground, movie, roadside pani puri and Chinese noodles. Let us check out the financial aspects now. As a rule of thumb , we invariably HAD to eat mirchi bajji/chaat/jilebi/manchurian followed by Mountain Dew or Sprite almost daily in the evenings. So that ate up 20 bucks per head. The matches were played in the mornings and as mentioned earlier at grounds around 3-4 kms away. Since the scooters weren't used by our dads anymore, the fuel filling responsibility was completely left to us. Mind you, it had to be done within the alternate day allowance of max 30 bucks. Since 20 bucks had to be saved for the evening, we resorted to the trick every second middle-class guy our age, across the world did - fill just enough fuel to last for this moment. Thus was born the epic "Paanch point petrol daalo" . I guess 0.5 on the counter needed a 'Dravid square cut' level stylishly name instead of a boring 'Chanderpaul defence' level name like Point Five Litre. Hence the name Paanch point petrol. This half litre usually lasted for 2-3 days. On the rare occasions where 50 bucks remained, the smart guys used to ask for 1 litre - half in the tank, another half in the bisleri bottle in the dickey for an emergency (which usually was very often). Awesome, right ? There were other ingenious but ethical methods to raise quick money on days where had to watch movies First Day or a grand meal at Papaji-Da-Dhaba. It was, hold your breath, selling newspapers. Total kickass. Assimilate the papers, go to the old thatha at the paper shop, and come back with a whopping 50 bucks. The other guys even sold whiskey bottles discarded by their grand dads. That also had excellent returns. The harvest of 50 was usually spent without a cent remaining. Ah, what joy! Just to contrast, I spent 50 bucks a few hours earlier for a mango milk shake. That was of course superb so no cribs. In the engineering days, my friends used to buy every textbook at the beginning of the semester and treat them with utmost respect, care and devotion. They took care not to deface any page or sully any parts. The reason being - textbooks(past and current) also served as a ready source of quick money, that too big amounts like 200-300. When the need for 300 arose, typically a birthday party with excess booze, the spic n span textbooks were sold off, only to be bought later at the same place for a throw away price before exams. Well, have you ever thought of selling current year textbooks? Genius move.

This might give some wrong impressions that our parents were the kanjooos kind and stereo typical Tam Brahms as portrayed in movies. On the contrary, they were quite generous and always gave money when asked. Just that we were more generous while spending and so it was never sufficient. I don't remember any instance of being denied money as such. However, I am sure that any amount of pocket money wouldn't have been enough! We used to travel 12kms just for chat at Jubilee Hills, followed by juice at Mayurs. We always needed more - more for movies, cricket, eating out, shirts and what not. Of course I don't repent even a bit because we had a huge blast, actually at nominal rates. Cut to the present. None of us use Chetaks or Kinetic Hondas. In fact Chetak production has been phased out. We graduated from 2 wheelers to cars to roam on the streets of Hyderabad. We take control of the bill and argue "I will pay". My Apache always gets a full tank once in a month, using a credit card. The paanch point days are gone. We only deal with paanch sau (500 bucks) on going to a petrol bunk. I am really curious as to what 15 yr old kids these days do. In all likelihood, their dads must be earning whopping amounts slogging in Infosys as AVPs. I am not sure if these kids play. I mean sports and not games. Even if they did, it would be going to coaching classes with a driver and unanimously agreeing that Yusuf Pathan is the best player in India. What a pity I say. A superb meal at ITC Sheraton or a plush seat at a PVR multiplex will not give me even 10% of the enjoyment and satisfaction I had then. The common answers to the best dialogue would be mundane stuff like "Mere paas maa hai" in Hindi; or one among many immortal Rajini dialgues in Tamil. For me, the one phrase that stands above all these dialogues for the memories associated is Paanch Point Petrol daalo.