The Roman Dimension

Roman Singh Deshtone was born at 4pm on a bright sunday morning in a village three roadside dhabas away from Patiala. He was born into a well to do Punju family. The family was mostly into drug smuggling and organ trafficking, but since they hosted 14-day weddings on a weekly basis and served a lot of free paneer noone complained. Roman Singh had a normal childhood. He grew up eating a lot of Farex till he was two years old. With bits of tandoori chicken. He danced his first bhangra at 3, two months after learning to say his forst word: "balle". His dad has a snap of the first time Roman pointed to the sky with both index fingers. Roman went to kindergarten, tractored the farm, and acted in two sardar jokes by the time he was 12.

While all this was happening in the burgeoning plains of Punjab, it was not quite gynaecological silence in the green backwaters of pristine Kerala. No one clearly remembers when Dimension Poovathurkaddavil was born. As soon as his mother had gone into labour, (and there was talk of a local bandh as she had sone so without union membership) Dimension's family ran to Cochin to apply for his passport and Abu Dhabi visa. But the general consensus time was 3 pm. It was after Jose uncle's phone call from Qatar and just before the neighbours fell into the well after getting drunk on hooch. Dimension was brought up on a wholesome diet of rice, fish fry, fish curry, roast fish, coconut milk, coconut gravy, coconut flakes and coconut halwa all cooked in cocnut oil. His father had named him after "My Dear Kittichathan", India's first 3D movie. Dimension was lucky he was an only child. His dad wanted to name his kids 1 Dimension, 2 Dimension and so on. His mom thought it was too long and wanted to call them Biju, Siju, Miju, Liju, Diju, Miju, Niju and so on. Dimension was a compromise.

Roman Singh was an inquisitive boy. He read a lot and by the time he was 18 he could recite all the collected works of Gurdass Mann by heart. But what changed his life forever was the encyclopedia he won in school on annual day. Roman had prepared relentlessly and his whole family helped him practise. His mother was in the kitchen for weeks. Finally on the second sunday of March, Roman Singh Deshtone raced past the field and won first place in the 34th Annual Tandoori Chicken eating competition. All proceeds went to the World Wildlife Fund. His prize was a fresh copy of the Encyclopedia Patiala. 424 pages of all the wisdom in the world incuding a special 300 page supplement on food. He was a little let down. He was hoping to win the Daler Mehndi audio tape. The book was mind boggling. But what really caught Roman Singh's imagination was the chapter on Radio communication.

Dimension was a hardworking student. He did average in everything, but topped the school in "Illegal Emmigration" and "Practial Passport Forgery". He loved travelling, and by 7th class he had visited every major international airport in South India. By 10th standard he had memorised the time table of every airline servicing the Gulf sector and cabin luggage allowance for each. He seemed to be heading the same way as his cousins Dinto and Tindo, both of whom were now successful tea shop magnates in Fujeirah. But then in 11th his father bought him a radio from the gulf. It was a wonderful gift. His dad told him how much he had to save to afford one. Dimension treasured his radio and showed it to all his friends. It was a "Philslip" original made in Liberia.

Soon these young minds were enraptured in the radio. They dreamt of circuits and boards, and stations, and sound and sexy radio presenters in pale pink lingerie. (Ed.: This point is highly debateable. We have not been able to establish this without doubt. In one of his letters Dimension talk of lungi-coloured Lingerie.) They bought all the radios they could with their pocket money. They broke them apart and tried to fix them up again. They went to all the libraries and read all the books they could. They were radio freaks.

However, inspite of the fact that Roman drove a speedy Yezdi and Dimension a swift Bajaj, life caught up with them. They were forced to earn a living. Roman started a firm specializing in costumes for Punjabi music video productions and Dimension started operating a bus service between Calicut airport and Guruvayoor. Both failed. Punjabi video producers rented a single bedsheet from Roman and cut it up to clothe the female lead and her 4235 extras. Soon Roman was broke and could barely afford 14 kulchas and 4 plates of sarson ka saag a day. Dimension was even less fortunate. First his staff and then his passengers went on strike. Then in the third week Calicut airport went on strike. He was forced to sell his bed and go around borrowing money for a visa and flight ticket to Sharjah.

Life seemed to go nowehere for our radio-obsessed young arabian horses. Inside them there was a small voice telling them they could do better. Roman's inner voice even had a bhangra background soundtrack. Dimension knew he wanted to be more than just a tea shop owner in a desert oasis. His sights were higher. He wanted an attached restaurant and a petrol pump. That night they both slept the fitfull sleep of the troubled. They rolled and turned and gunted. At precisely 11:57 pm they both sat up like a bolt of lightening. And they both went to pee. They continued to roll and tumble till four in the morning. Then it happened. The brainwave. They both ran to their underground laboratories and started work on something that had come in their sleep. They worked tirelessly for months. But it would take the unison of minds of both great men to come up with the final product.

They had almost given up on their respective works. Both had reached a dead end. Roman was thinking of starting work on a biotech project that made paddy fields directly give biriyani. Dimension had finally applied for his Visa and was all set to fly. It was in the waiting lounge in Bombay Airport that they both met each other. They both walked up to the TV display, checked their flight timings and turned around. Their eyes met. It was like love at first sight, it was as if they were meant to be. As if they were weird characters in the same weird dbab post. Soon they were talking and within minutes they knew together they could work together (Ed.: The words "some booty" were removed after the word "work" due to gender sensitivity requirements.) and make the radio an unforgettable experience for its audience. They saw dreams of radio beaming out over networks and people smiling and being happy in their rooms. They did not dream the lingerie thing.

They knew with names like Roman and Dimension they would never be able to make it big in radio world. Today they are known as RJs Viper and Fatcat. They play the best music ever and do it with some punju-mallu panache.. so tune in to the Radio Event Extraordinaire "The Roman Dimension" tonight at 12:00 am on http://192.168.117.12:8000 and make it worthwhile having written such a long verbose launch note for it...

Phew,

Viper
FatCat

(People this was the launch post I wrote for a LAN station me and a friend of mine are launching on campus today. The post went up on one of our electronic NBs. Dont try the URL, its doesnt work outside the LAN...)