Saturday
Hotel Hilltop was the only big hotel in Solan. Built right on top of the hill, overlooking the Solan Valley, with majestic views of the snow-capped mountains, Hilltop was popular with tourists and residents alike. The Indian and Australian cricket teams were to stay there. Even though the match was on Friday, the teams were to arrive in Solan on Wednesday itself. The official reason given by the teams was that they needed time to get used to playing at a high altitude, since Solan was a hill station. However, everyone knew that Rhea Varma, the wife of the Indian team captain Rahul Bedi was very fond of hill stations. She never missed an opportunity to travel with the team and visit new places. She had impressed on her husband and the team management to get to Solan a few days earlier so that they could enjoy the peace and solitude of a hill station. The team was also staying back for the weekend to celebrate Rahul’s birthday on Saturday.
Police Chief Walia was not too happy. Two high profile teams visiting the city and staying for so long would be enough to drive the residents crazy. They would all crowd the area around the hotel. This would pose a problem for the police. The Solan district police were not used to working hard. Expecting them to be on their toes was a bit too much. Did he have a choice? No.
‘Cheer up, Dad,’ Kabir said enthusiastically on Saturday morning. They were in the police chief’s car, on the way to Hilltop. Seated in the back seat of the jeep were Aditya and Akriti. At Kabir’s insistence, Chief Walia had picked them up on the way. Kabir being the foodie that he was, loved the breakfast at Hilltop and had invited the other two to join him.
As they turned left and drove up the winding road which branched off the main Mall road, Walia looked into the rear-view mirror. ‘Hungry?’ he asked the kids seated at the back. Both of them nodded. ‘We’ll be there in a couple of minutes,’ he said as the jeep took yet another hairpin bend in its stride.
‘And you, Kabir,’ he said, looking at his son, and without waiting for his response, instructed, ‘finish your breakfast in 45 minutes. My meeting with Anthony Pereira will not last longer than that. I don’t want to hang around waiting for you to finish your hog fest.’ An embarrassed Kabir just nodded his head.
Anthony Pereira, or Anto as he was called by the residents of Solan, was a very popular and respected man. He and his wife Lizzy were almost like the first couple of Solan. They were also the owners of the Hilltop Hotel. Kabir, Adi and Akriti knew them because Anto and Lizzy had been chief guests at their school function many times.
No one stopped Chief Walia as his jeep entered the Hotel compound. Anto was waiting at the main entrance to receive them. Anto was an odd figure – squat, with legs hardly visible under his round torso, he looked like two footballs placed on top of each other, and just as imbalanced. For some strange reason he wore a hat, which sat just above the rim of his spectacles and looked completely out of place. Lizzy stood next to him. Quite the opposite, Lizzy looked extremely well-groomed and fit and had a big smile on her face. Obviously, Anto didn’t seem to understand that a simple smile could make all the difference to a face.
Once inside, the three kids made a beeline for the coffee shop. They found an unoccupied table in the far end of the coffee shop and hurriedly went there. The view through the glass wall right next to that table was stunning. From there, they could see nature in its full glory. The sun shining on the peaks of the snow-capped mountains presented a wonderful sight. Even for a resident of Solan, who was used to such a sight, it was breathtaking.
‘A Masala dosa, please,’ Akriti responded to the waiter’s query once they had settled down.
‘I will go for the buffet,’ said Aditya as he didn’t want to make the effort of going through the menu.
‘And you, sir?’ said the waiter, turning to Kabir.
‘I will have …’ Kabir paused.
Before he could finish his sentence, Aditya and Akriti said together, ‘A double cheeseburger, vegetarian, with lots of fries on the side,’ and then they both burst out laughing. They knew that Kabir loved a double cheeseburger and always had it whenever he went out. He just couldn’t resist it.
‘I am super excited for Friday,’ Kabir declared when the burger arrived. ‘I have never watched a match in a stadium. This will be the first time. And that too against the mighty Australian cricket team.’
‘I haven’t even gone inside the stadium. Dad has promised to take us so many times. But we haven’t been so far,’ Aditya said, digging into his parathas.
Akriti who was busy clicking a picture of the dosa, looked up and said, ‘I want to click a selfie with Rahul and Rhea. ‘For my Instagram account ,’ she added, ‘I will then become the most followed person in Solan, on Instagram.’
‘You have one person right here, who can follow you. What is your Insta id?’ All three turned in the direction of the voice. It was Lizzy.
‘Hello, Ma’am,’ Akriti mumbled. ‘We were just talking!’
‘No, no! I would love to follow you. The princess of the SMS gang. You guys are rock stars. In fact, I should have followed you long ago. My bad.’ A quick exchange of IDs and a few clicks on the smartphones later, they had followed each other on Instagram.
‘Aah,’ exclaimed Lizzy. ‘The dosa you are just about to eat, looks a lot more delicious on your Instagram than it does on the table out there.’ She smiled at them and asked, ‘Do you guys want something that is not on the menu, we can have that made for you,’
Kabir, was digging into his third double cheeseburger and Akriti was busy looking through Lizzie’s Instagram profile, so it was left to Aditya to respond. ‘No, Ma’am, it’s fine. Thank you. The buffet spread is so huge. Everything we want is …’
‘Oooooooh. So cute,’ Aditya’s words were interrupted by Akriti’s cooing. ‘Is that your cat?’ she asked as she turned her phone towards Lizzy. On the screen was the image of a cat.
Lizzy nodded. ‘Ahh, yes. That’s Bella. Isn’t she adorable? The little darling.’
‘She is, she is!’ Akriti fawned over the images on Instagram. ‘Absolutely.’
‘You can stop admiring Bella on Instagram, here she is in flesh and blood,’ Lizzy said.
Akriti looked up and saw that a hotel steward had walked up to them and handed Lizzy a basket. Bella, the cat, was sitting calmly inside. With white fur and green eyes, she looked even more adorable than her picture on Instagram. Her eyes were a little droopy and she appeared languid – as if she had eaten a dozen rats and wanted to sleep. The three of them played with Bella while Lizzy hung around.
Ten minutes later, Chief Walia made an appearance with Anto and they bid the couple goodbye and walked towards the door. At the door, Kabir turned back and looked at Lizzy and Bella. He smiled and waved to them as Lizzy entered the lift and the door closed behind them. Bella looked as lazy as ever sitting contentedly in Lizzy’s arms.
The doorman at the door saluted Chief Walia and extended his hand towards Aditya giving him a warm handshake. He then patted Akriti on her back as the kids made their way to the car.
‘Hotel cats are well fed and lazy,’ Kabir said as he shut the door of the jeep. ‘They don’t need to hunt for anything. They get cooked rats served to them on a platter. Utterly jobless these cats are nowadays.’
‘Wonder what will happen if we put a cat and a dog together now. Will they even know that a cat is supposed to be scared of a dog?’ Aditya added his two-bit.
‘Shut up, guys. The cat was choooo cute,’ Akriti exclaimed as she hugged herself. ‘Such a well-behaved cat. Simply adorable it was.’ Chief Walia didn’t say anything the entire way. He was too preoccupied with the security arrangements for the visit in general and the match in particular.