Legends Of The Fall Rahul Goswami

Combi didn't like the laws of gravity and centrifugal force, and deposited themselves in the lower branches of a tree on the Panjim-Margao highway.

Babush owned six cars: two Mercedes Benz 220 six-cylinder twin-cam saloons, three Beetles and the Combi. One night Babush floored one of his Benz 220s to 180 kmph along the Panjim promenade toward Miramar. There, grins Babush, a statue got in the way.

The statue was one of those unsmiling Romanesque torsos with little tolerance for passionate spirits like Babush and his Benz. Nothing happened to my baby, recalls Babush, meaning the Benz not the bronze. What did happen is that he mounted the steps of the statue at something approaching Mach speed, got into an airborne twist-and-roll, and spent the better part of an hour trying to synchronise his perception of above and below. My brakes didn't work very well after that, he shrugs.

 

Today he drives nothing other than his favourite taverna owner mad. Cows and bulls, trees, other cars and pigs all got in the way, he grumbles. He used to be an ace foxtrot artist, till his 13th or 14th crash, when a bit of tendon disappeared. A certain Lorna from Mahim was quite prepared to marry him for that alone, but Babush stayed more than married to his cars. After his 8th or 9th feni though he still gets misty-eyed about Lorna.

Just like Rui Braganza used to get about Monaco. Rui, dressed in a designer sweatshirt, suede waistcoat, white pantaloons and leather sandals, used to cut an enigmatic figure as he strode around Panjim with his halo of silver-and-black hair flickering around him like an aurora. He too liked to spend time at the same taverna as Babush, the one with no name by the old customs house opposite the jetty where women sold homemade