RR - 023: When Shivaji and Sambaji derailed Magneto's train

The Magneto in X-Men was the central villain of the story with the ability to generate and control magnetic fields. The Magneto of LLM was also the central villain on campus, but this is where any similarities ended. He had the unique ability to attract chicks in hordes and this caused much envy and gnashing of teeth among the rest of the less gifted mortals (read Shivaji and Sambaji)

Where they huffed and puffed in their efforts for acquisitions and the odd hostile takeover, Magneto seemed to simply charm his way into effortless buyouts.

And one of their first experiences of his power came midway through their first term. Shivaji, The Buffer, Aurangzeb, Magneto and Hot Potato had gone out for lunch to one of the beaches in La La Land. Shivaji had initially engineered the lunch only with Hot Potato but at the last moment, much to his dismay, had realized that Magneto had managed to wriggle his way in. He had then had to call up reinforcements (read operations support) in the form of the aforementioned twosome. Their roles were well defined. The Buffer was to obviously buffer Magneto. Aurangzeb was to play bad cop to Shivaji’s good cop while grilling hot potato (pun intended).

Now Hot Potato lived by the motto of “Variety is the Spice of Life” and thus had the tendency to change social groups with alarming frequency. Where one day she would be spotted hanging out with B Company, the next day it was Magneto and sometimes even with those from God’s own country. Anyway, Hot Potato was at that point of time in the Growth phase of her PLC and had thus caught Shivaji’s attention.

So Shivaji and Aurangzeb (dutifully) followed the good cop, bad cop routine with The Buffer taking care of Magneto. An excerpt of their role play is given below:

Shivaji (conversational gambit): So Hot Potato, which is your hometown?
Hot Potato: I hail from the Western parts of India
Aurangzeb: So does that mean you’re a West Indian? Your accent would certainly qualify you for one (in an undertone)
Shivaji: Don’t listen to him; he’s just pissed off at something
Aurangzeb: Yeah, so pissed off that I need to find a loo to drain my ….umm…. anger
Shivaji: Anyways, so what are your hobbies and stuff?
Hot Potato: Oh I love to make new friends and I love dancing too
Aurangzeb: Yeah, we noticed that in the last party, Magneto nearly got a heart attack seeing you shaking your booty
Hot Potato: What???
Shivaji: He just meant that we also noticed that you dance very well in the last party (glaring at Aurangzeb)

At this point, Shivaji very quickly realized that Aurangzeb while trying to enact the bad cop routine was taking things too far and was actually playing nasty cop. And hence he jumped straight to the question he was dying to ask before Aurangzeb messed up everything.

Shivaji: Hot Potato, do you have a boyfriend?
Hot Potato: Yes
Shivaji: What!!! I don’t believe you. What’s his name?
Hot Potato: Vangirappu Madhusudhan. I call him Vangs.
Aurangzeb: What kind of a name is Vangirappu Madhusudhan? Sounds positively gay…..and Im not referring to the happy kinds here

Let’s not get into what happened next in this particular dialogue. But this admission by Hot Potato led to much consternation in The Conqueror’s camp. They would realize much later that this was a non existent boy friend invented by Magneto for Hot Potato to keep her out of “harm’s way” so as to say. However they did not know it at that point of time. Hence, how now to overcome this new obstacle became the moot point of their discussion.

“Lets issue a supari in his name, we can all contribute from our Summer Internship monies” said Shivaji who used to always border on the theatrical.

“Let’s put up some pics of us grooving with her at a party on Orkut (FB wasn’t popular then) and get Vangs to bare his Fangs with jealousy” said Sambaji who was always enthu about these dancing interludes.

“Let’s get The Buffer up close and personal with Vangs and thus make her jealous” said Aurangzeb who always seemed to love such wacky ideas.

The Buffer, not liking the direction which the conversation was taking, had a rare moment of inspiration “Comrades, it should not be this hypothetical Vangs guy you should be worried about who is a zillion miles away. We need to focus on eliminating Magneto from the picture”.

And thus they started plotting Magneto’s downfall. After much brainstorming, SWOT analysis, putting on thinking hats and all that kind of management jargon, they finally firmed up the plan. Shivaji would invite Hot Potato and Magneto to an end of term party at one of their senior’s rooms in the boys hostel. There would be music and dancing and drinking and prancing ending up with Magneto getting edged out of the picture.

To ensure that things went as per plan, The Buffer would be strategically stationed to cut off Magneto from Hot Potato. Aurangzeb was in charge of manning the drinks counter to ensure that the booze flowed freely all around. Shivaji and Sambaji ofcourse were the boogie woogie guys. A few other “non threatening” guys and gals were also invited to camouflage their actual intent.

And the plan worked like a dream. The moment Magneto entered with Hot Potato, he was pounced upon by The Buffer who started irritating him with his non stop nonsense act. Shivaji and Sambaji pounced on Hot Potato and tried to separate her from Magneto by inviting her to the dance floor. Aurangzeb upped the ante with loud music from the makeshift DJ console and Patiala pegs to ensure that everybody was in high spirits.

But these Magneto’s are made of sterner stuff. He clung on to Hot Potato like a leech and just when The Conquerors were beginning to despair, Shivaji came up with a masterstroke. He offered Hot Potato a drink. Magneto opened his mouth to let the morons know that she did not drink………………but before he could utter a word, she had grabbed the glass and gulped down half the contents in one swallow.

Magneto was so shocked, he started resembling a goldfish in a water bowl, with his mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. He did not drink and had assumed till that moment that she did not too. Shivaji and Sambaji jumped for joy, joined her in doing a “bottoms up” of their drinks and rushed with her to the dance floor. They knew it was game, set, match to The Conquerors.

Seeing Magneto make a surreptitious exit a few moments later, The Buffer, duties done started pissing off The Knight with great gusto. Aurangzeb, who liked to get his fellow citizens drunk and then sit back and watch the fun, got busy doing exactly that.

They partied till dawn and then went to bed exhausted but satisfied. Afterall they had indeed managed to derail Magneto’s train!!!

Note:

1. All characters are fictional. Resemblance, if any, is purely coincidental.

2. Kindly refer the opening post on Buffering Theories for any reference to the main characters.