I showed up at the appointed place. Lobo Lobo dressed in black, was sitting bolt upright in a coffin
Illustration/Uday Mohite
I received a cryptic message—“Dikuna men. I have a plan to discuss, come tonight to de backside of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Church in East Mazagon.”
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I showed up at the appointed place. Lobo Lobo dressed in black, was sitting bolt upright in a coffin.
“Where are we, Lobo Lobo?”
“Dis is a cemetery, all Lobos before me are buried here… in de grave to my left is my grand-fadder, Emelio Eusebio Esperanca Éclair Lobo… to de right is my cuzzin brudder Zinedine Zizou Zebraska Lobo.”
“But why are you sitting in a coffin?”
“I’m practicing.”
‘Practising for what?
“Practising to be ‘dead. I’m tinking to ‘off’ myself for few days.”
“But why Lobo Lobo?!?”
“Arre Dikuna men, if dat dame, whaaaashername… Pooja Pandey… no not Pooja… Phoolan…no no dats dat dacoit lady, uhm, ahhh Poonam Pandey, if she can pretend to be dead, den why not me?”
“But Poonam Pandey ‘died’ for a reason, she was not getting roles, she wanted quick fame, so her PR firm thought why not fake her own death, in the service of humanity… in this case cervical cancer awareness—all very tragic till she came out and said she was alive! Are you ‘dying’ for a cause or an issue like ‘Save the Tigers’ or ‘People vs BMC’ on the issue of digging up roads, some pressing issue like that?” What is your reason to ‘die’?”
“Uh, no Dikuna men, no such thing, I am not killing myself… I am ‘dying’ so I can disappear! I’m fully fed up and want to just vanish from all dis for
a few days.”
“But why disappear? Just tell everyone you want a break, go off on a bike ride, go to Hong Kong to watch Messi! Why would you put all your loved ones through this?”
“Arre bunkus ‘loved ones’, dey are de ones giving me maximum stress and headache! My wife Myrtle morning to evening eating my head, earn moe earn moe, she says, every day. She has moe sumting she wants to purchase for de house… dose damn kids of mine, bleddy good fer nuttin bot of dem... son Ronaldo wants iPhones and zPhones… and dat dotter Cindi, clodes only she buys… high heel shoos and make-up! My bleddy service centre boss is adding fifty more houses for me to service TV cables, and to fix bleddy ACs, wid no salary increase—so I have to go out on dere balconies like one blinking Spiderman and clean dere compressors and fix dere dish antennas—how many loans I can take to meet all dese demands. My expenses have gone trough de roof! Every munth bleddy EMIs—I’m fully fed up! See men dis my life has became too much for me… cannot cope up only, I can’t just take a break, dey’ll follow me dere—I have to become invisible like a ghost— Also I want to teach everyone a lesson—it is called LWL— Life Widout Lobo… all dese peepuls who are teking me for granted, wot is dat Hindi phrase, ‘ghar ka murga dal baraabar hai’… dey should learn a good lesson, wot would it be like to live life widout me, me Theo Lobo …it will be freedom for a few days for me.”
“So how you planning to go about this rather madcap idea?”
“So tomorrow, I’m planning wid one undertaker, Myron Marvel Misquita, to hide in dis coffin, he’ll arrange for me to be buried here, den when de coast is clear…I’ll ‘disappear’..poooof!”
The next evening my phone rang, it was a rather distraught Lobo Lobo.
“Dikuna men, can I come and stay wid you for a few days, my wife has trown me out of de house.”
“What happened to your plan of ‘playing dead?” I asked.
“See men, all was going well, I was hiding in de coffin, I typed a message to de undertaker who was late,“ Hey Myron, I’m hiding in de coffin, where youre men?”
But in my excitement by mistake I sent de message to my wife, Myrtle instead of Myron… dey are one after de udder in my phone directory, na?
So I’m scared if I go home, Myrtle will really kill me!’ Lobo Lobo concluded.
Rahul daCunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, photographer and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com
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