Chimpmunk Chronicles

Time leap again… back to 2008. Shaggy was in second year. The Kund incident had already added to the legend, and the streets of Davangere were abuzz with Shaggy stories.

Now, Fate and Shaggy — or Broi, as he's lovingly known in Manglish — have had a rocky thing going on. Not quite enemies, not quite friends. But when Lady Fate decides to play kitten with the cosmic Jenga tower... things shift... Oh!!!, cue the commotion.

And this story? is one such encounter, one of those shifts. The kind that results in airborne medicos, foolproof logic, brave new friends and sus noises.

Without further ado, let us begin the story. Let’s start with the setting first, shall we…

Winter Blues & Booze

Winter in Davangere is magical. 18–20°C, cuddly weather, festival cheer. But not for Shaggy.

Cupid had struck everyone in town — everyone except our hero. Parties were being planned left and right, couples coupling like confused chemistry reactions, and Shaggy? Shaggy was alone. In fact, he became so single that even Bart Simpson’s “No Girls Allowed” treehouse would’ve rejected him

His wingman OP was missing. And his only +1 for New Year’s? Probably something that’d get him kicked out of the party — not into one …. Hell, the only one he would’ve had for the holidays for company would have been the other Simpsons reject, his friend Milhouse!!!! Well… Technically we were the only ones that called him Milhouse, Mr Pradeep. But that’s a story for another time. Let’s cut to the chase: it's winter, Shaggy is single, looking to mingle, but Davangere wasn’t even giving him a tingle, so…. his heart got no love Pringles…. See what I did there??

Wintertime also meant December holidays; this usually meant a more relaxed time among the students there, I mean, with new year’s and all coming up, Christmas times … The whole enchilada had the town abuzz with whispers of this party, that party, here, there, everywhere; the Twitter-sphere was clouded with probable plans. I mean like, Danny Ocean-level plans. But alas … no plans for shaggy … well for starters u got to have someone to go to the party with … And the only +1 he had at that time would only probably get him kicked out of the party. I know what you are thinking…. OP, right??? Nope! oh no, no, no, no, nooooo!

I think it is time that I introduce you, my readers to the enigmatic Ghandi, a fellow doc and batchmate of Shaggy. Enter Jolly Singh – The Love Warrior

Affectionately called Jolly Singh Meet Gandhi, a.k.a. Jolly Singh. Always smiling. Always showing up. The kind of guy who took Yoda’s “Do or do not, there is no try” and cranked it up to “Do karna hi hai, bro.”

When Shaggy walked into his room that cold, lonely December 14th evening, it wasn’t OP waiting inside — it was Ever Present Jolly. He had earned the reputation of the guy that was “always there” no matter what; he was the Shiva to anyone’s Kabir Singh. We shall see this quality of jolly

in the play out to its max in the following story. On a bleak Friday evening on December 14th of 2008, our girlfriend-less protagonist makes his way to his room. A hard day at the hospital, a lonely walk to the room, and a lonelier evening alone puffing and huffing, delving ever so trippy into the vacuum of a single no-mingle, dude. However, this day was different …. As he stepped into the room, expecting to have a cribbing OP sitting there waiting to rub salt on his wounds, instead he was greeted by none other than Jolly. On questioning his presence there, he comments, “Yaar, sab saale chala gaye, chutti; sirf hum hi bache hain ab. Holiday seasons kicking in and off go the kids for trips and vacay… In this case, our Jolly-boy was dumped by the universe (read: his girl, who he claimed was his universe…cue: puke).

Coming to the realisation that they have only each other and nothing else or no one else, our boys decide to do the next best thing …. Both bachelors decided to fight destiny the Desi way: with rum and regret!! simple yet effective countermeasure to the situation presented to them.

Anyways, evening rolls up, and the boys suit up …. Walk into the finest booze shop, walk out of that shop and then walk back into the most affordable booze shop and stock up, lock stock and 2 smoking cigarette packs later. The boys were in town and weren’t backing down.

Back at the room, Pop!! Goes the soda, swivel the cap off the rum, and voila …. Sweet ass Death juice, to go !!! gulp, gulp, gulp …aaaaah! REPEAT !!!…. pop! swivel and gulp, gulp, gulp again … aaaah… 2 pegs and all seems well … a little warm and the thunderous realisation that they, as usual, forgot to get shit to eat !!!! Goddammit!!!! Well, call and order, says Jolly …. Thank God for delivery (sounds odd, I know but trust me … We got our first Dominos in 2013... yeah!!! You will have a new appreciation for the shit, trust me.

Anyways ... after a lot more gulps and once the rum settled in and the food (eventually) arrived, the conversation turned, as all Desi drunken nights do… to girls…. As always. Having kept quiet during the drinky discussions, Jolly gets quite curious about the silence of Shaggy and probes and probes and probes…. Shaggy, quiet so far, but the probing paid off; Shaggster finally broke. And when he broke — he crumbled.

Tears. Bawling. Existential wailing. The kind of drama that would make Schindler’s List look like a feel-good romcom.

I mean, the only thing missing was cheese to go along with that whine.

So once, after much deliberation, the collective Shaggy, Jolly, and a couple of other friends concluded that getting Shaggy a girl will solve the problem at hand …. And once that consensus was reached … there was no stopping jolly. Our pa-ji took it upon himself to ensure that by the end of the night, Shaggy would be set for life …. Yup, he was so confident that he was sure he would not only get him a girl, but he would also get him his future wife…. If you haven’t guessed it, our Jolly Man had a flair for the filmi.

Down a bottle, that’s when the Luv-engers Initiative was born. they suit up, kit up and roll-out

…. To where, you may ask? Well, to the girl’s hostel

Jolly declared — and I quote — “We will get you a girl tonight. Not just a girl. A wife.”

Was he sober? .... No.

Was he confident? ..... Abso-fucking-lutely.

For… ek tha Bagpiper – the un-fuck-with-able .......... A.K.A. .......... Dr Ghandi

We, however take a short break from the story much like usual, to introduce you to the seconds setting of our story, the place they were going to, the girl’s hostel, our educational association had a common girls 3-block hostel Hemavati, Nethravathi and Amravati … I think ...or something like that. Now these hostels are situated in the residential area, wise starting from 1 main road to another with 2 small connecting/slip/gully roads running alongside it … This info is quite important to the story.

Operation Vroom

Jolly's plan was legendary. No, literally. He had a four-step foolproof method for winning over women.

Step 1: Take a loud bike.

Step 2: Ride past the girls' hostel. - Vroom Vroom wale effect se.

Step 3: Identify which girl looks out the window.

Step 4: Find her next day. Offer a ride on Vroom Vroom gaadi... Boom! ... Love.

OH, I wept for humanity when I heard the 4-step process as well, levels of absurdity, stupidity, so filmi… It might just work, I thought…. Then I slapped myself.

Armed with this wisdom, Shaggy climbed onto Jolly’s purple Bajaj Pulsar 150… vrooming, obvs.

Their destination???

The legendary Hemavati-Nethravathi-Amaravati Hostel Blocks. All the while giving him a crash course how exactly they are going to get him a girl… Wah!! Kya confidence??? Damn !!! Even Jesus would have sat behind him …. Course midway, they reach the hostel grounds, and Jolly instructs the luv-engers to initiate the “love-bomb”.

Step 1: jolly vrooms his bike, vroom vrooms again and rides along the main road of hostel

hoping to wake the sleeping beauties… …. Jolly rode past the front gate. Vroomed. Screeched... Nothing.

Problem: The hostels are built lengthwise. Girls don’t look out the front. They look out the sides. .....…DAMN!!

Jolly sidesteps this. Solution? Hit the gully road that runs beside the blocks. … He turns his vehicle around and goes by the main road another time before Vroom-ing through the gully at top noise …and like a moth to a flame …. Girls started looking out the window … And I wept some more for humanity.

Having seen step 1 work despite every ounce of sense saying it shouldn’t… Shaggy is all peppy. “Step 2, bhai,” quips Jolly.

Step 2: Jolly vrooms through the gully.

Success. Heads turn. Windows open. Girls peek.

And Shaggy? Locks eyes with Target — unsuspecting, innocent,

The only headache now being the constant about-turns he had to do to ride those gully roads up and down …. Solution time again?

Hell yea!! You know it is.

Jolly,  decides to circle the building. One main road, two gullies — they were literally orbiting the hostel. Brilliant, right?

Well, it would be if you were driving around places with …you know …roads. And those that have been in or have lived in smaller towns know the state of the roads there. Unfortunately, these roads weren’t built for showboating. They were more like rejected test tracks for lunar rovers. This bit of info is key to the story…

Having resolved the problem, Jolly vrooms his bike and majestically like a Moto-Mufasa and

speeds into the other side gully … vroom, vroom, vroooooooooooom!!!!

The Launch Sequence

And it is here, much like all my stories, we shall pause here and jump a few hours ahead … in fact, to the next day. Where we meet the “Target” in the interest of privacy, we shall refer to her as such.

During our luncheon break we meet her; now we know her through another source, and I must emphasize that we did not know that she was Shaggy’s target … And she didn’t know that we were Shaggy’s friends. Just as we were about to leave to visit our friend in the clinic, she jokingly blurts out, “Check for a flying chipmunk while you are there” …. “Huh?” We went and then we are treated to a story that solved not only the reason why we were visiting a “friend” and who the chipmunk was…

If you haven’t already guessed it, the chipmunk, the friend was one and the same … …. Shaggy!!!!  cue: facepalm.

Well, it turns out that the girls were trying to see who the idiot who was riding around melting their ears (hurray for humanity) and after the last vrooooooom our man Jolly did, the girls, now royally pissed, tried to lock down who it was.

The Luv-engers, thinking it had worked, sped into the other gully. Now, the said road in question had a very, very famous speed breaker: a huge, humongous 90-degree hump, the kind that Evil Knievel used in his stunts.

Now both had no idea an item as such even existed; Jolly, on a mission to wed Shaggy to whoever it was he saw, tells him, “Bro, stand on the side footrests — it’ll look cooler.” Shaggy, drunk and desperate to up his street cred, complies.

They zoom down the second gully, unaware of a gigantic speed breaker. The kind of bump that could launch a rocket… or a rum-fuelled Romeo.

BOOM!!!

Hit the breaker they did; take off both did! And by God did they take off … so much so that Houston called up Shaggy and went, “You have lift-off”!!! and as “Target” put it … “we heard an ‘ahhhhh!!” … a piercing shriek so shrill that it scared Dracula back into his coffin … sounded like a freaking chipmunk in labor”,

Desperately trying to find out where that shrill came from, the girls look down only to see a bike flying mid-air, and something that resembled flailing carpet being swept about by a hurricane… as the said carpet reached terminal height, the shrill stopped only to be replaced by a cry… 

“Ghannnnnnndiiiiiiiiii” followed by a loud thud and an” ow”.

The bike, which had taken flight with 2 idio-nauts like the SpaceX module bound for Mars…seemed to have lost its pilot, according to her….

“Lost its pilot?” All of us looked befuddled... How does a bike lose its rider midway through a bloody jump...? that’s stupid… not worry she says, we saw the whole tamasha

you see Jolly was a brilliant rider, but not a pilot… turns out when he saw that the vehicle was no longer terrestrial … He did what any man would do at first glance… GET OUT!!! The dude jumped off the vehicle!!!!! … only to do a mid-air face-plant with the “speed-breaker warning” signage facing the other side of the road.

And the bike??? Landed alone. No rider. No clue. Just vibes.

Ooooh, Shaggy, my shaggy ….

Fast forward a few days….

Jolly recovered with a bruised ego and a speedbreaker-shaped welt on his forehead.

Shaggy gained immortality; Shaggy never touched side footrests again... Or speed breakers but

the chipmunk? Oh, that legend flew… just like he did The girls still talk about “screeching chipmunk”.

And Lady Fate?

Probably somewhere sipping coconut water and going,

“Did I do that?”