i’m with my man bakurube downstairs at dolphin view cafe on this beautiful afternoon. the horizon is decked out in puffy white clouds, pretty as a postcard (something we used to post to our friends and fam back in the 90s).

i ask for an iced coffee while bakurube orders his black. he seems too on edge for such a lovely day, hastily rolling himself a cigarette from a mac baren pouch, which i take into my hands. i inhale the delicious aroma of its contents. it’s such a classic smell, reminding me of valuthere and browned leaves, a perfect autumn in the raajje of my childhood.

‘now don’t YOU start,’ snaps bakurube, grabbing the pouch. ‘i don’t know why people aren’t protesting. can’t get a goddamned cigarette anywhere in this hellhole.’

the server brings our coffees. bakurube gets his in an extremely small cup. i fear he might chuck its contents on the poor server.

‘what the hell is THIS?’ he asks.

‘it’s shrinkflation,’ i tell him, recalling adhly mentioning it recently. ‘you get a smaller size for the same price.’

‘fuckflation,’ says bakurube.

‘i’ll send you some money for this, ok?’ i tell him and he nods.

‘thanks,’ he says, his eyes on hulhule, its gathering of aeroplane tails, like a man who wishes he was on one of those birds, any one, so long as he is on his way out of here.

‘i have to quit spending on frivolous stuff,’ i go on. ‘i want to cut my spending.’

‘you know you can’t, husenfulhu. you’ll just have to earn more than you spend somehow.’

‘but the more i earn the more i spend. i can’t save, man.’

‘what do you spend it all on?’

‘eating out, i suppose.’

‘pay a bangladeshi hotaa 1500 rufiyaa a month, they’ll give you two meals a day,’ says bakurube, finishing off his coffee and asking for the bill.

‘have you done this?’

‘i know people who have.’

‘and it’s good?’

‘it’s 1500 rufiyaa, what do you think? it’s gonna taste like moti mahal?’

bakurube is much too grouchy today. it’s the ill temper of a man deprived of his cigarettes and unused to smoking rollies, unused that is to the lower nicotine content of a rolled cigarette.

the server brings the bill.

‘what the fuck! it’s 110 rufiyaa!’ screams bakurube, plunging his hand into his pocket to grab his wallet.

‘i have to make 20k to pay my rent in the next week,’ he tells me as we go towards his bike, parked under a tree. ‘it’s never-ending, this grind. and what for?’

‘don’t you like being alive?’

‘huh,’ snaps bakurube.

he throws his cigarette on the paving stones and crushes it violently with his foot.

as we leave the kaanivaa on his bike, i ask him: so, if someone were to give you $100k to break off all ties with me, would you do it?

‘are you fucking kidding me?’ he says. ‘i’d KILL you for HALF that!’