The Night of Ahmed Hassan (part 1)

Hi

This comes just over a week late, but is definitely man.myth.legend.sufi.lover.fighter.punjabi-worthy...

Two Fridays ago, I had the distinct honor of crashing at Doctor Ahmed Hassan's luxurious downtown apartment. To be in his company, let me say, is like being in the company of royalty. In fact, some would rightfully call Ahmed a prince. Prince AH. The royal heir of Kashmir. And I, but his simple and humble Punjabi man-toy...err, servant, had the priviledge of sleeping on his Ikea-bought red sofa bed.

But, to have had this high honor of sleeping in his two-bedroom downtown apartment located in the heart of Museum Campus, I had to first experience why in fact The Prince is the prince...

Oh, by the way, Taha was also a part of this night. But that's most definitely not the point here...

Simply put, he showed us how he owned Chicago and everything therein. It started with a traditional meal: Italian Express (IE) on Devon. I went with what's been my recent usual at IE, a cheeseburger (okay, so I ordered two). Taha and AH went with chicken biryani. When the biryani came out, each individual plate could have literally fed an entire army of hungry Gujuratis (note: I don't really know what that means, but what I am trying to say is that it was a lot of biryani for one man). To accompany our food, it was only right while on Devon to have refreshingly cold, yummy, and thick mango shakes.

So while waiting for our orders to come in, the time for salat al-maghrib came in. This maghrib prayer was 'special' though in that it was the first jammat (congregration) between the three of us. And so we prayed inside of IE's psuedo masjid/musalla in the back of the restaurant. From a spiritual perspective (in the end, the perspective that counts) that was probably the highlight of the night. Taha was the chosen imam and soon after, the three of us engaged in some hardcore dua. But I have a feeling that many of the duas were focused on winning the impending mini-golf extravaganza for the night. As fate would have it, only one man's duas were manifested into reality that night. But now I'm getting ahead of myself...

Throughout our pleasant conversation of the evening, which also consisted of a lot of mini-golf trash talking and random talks with our waiter about who looks like the best mini-golf player (note: for the first time ever, I won something. The waiter said I looked like the best player, followed by T-Man, and then AH dead last), we all made steady progress in eating our meal. Actually, to be honest (and don't tell them I said this), I didn't pay a word of attention to Taha or Ahmed while eating because I was enjoying my friggen burger way too much. So, at least 30 min into it, Taha starts to slow down in finishing his plate of biryani. Not a surprise as I've always doubted my man's Punjabihood. In the meantime, I had successfully killed cheeseburger #1 and the side of fries and was now ready for #2. Hassan, in a world of his own, finished the plate of biryani that could've fed an army of hungry Greeks that just came back from fighting for Troy herself (huh?) and then proceeded to munch on my fries. As I started to feel my stomach expanding to places outside of the known metaphysical realm of existence, I made a costly mistake and took what was supposed to be a 20 second break from it. Upon sensing my momentary weakness, the Kashmiri Ka Bucha (that's Ahmed; my reference for him throughout this posting will continuously change) immediately seized my plate like an army of...okay, okay no more of the army anecdotes...

Secretly, I was happy that he did this. I was trying to finish the burger just for bragging rights. To prove my manhood. All that heart-stopping (can we say cho-les-ter-ol?) type of fun. Taha and I were dumbfounded at The Hassan's actions. We looked at each other. Passionately. Lovingly. Oh shoot, wrong blog! Sorry... So we looked at each other, grinned, and told AH that he didn't have the guts to eat my burger and fries after eating the entire plate of biryani (not one grain of rice remained on his plate). Hassan smiled back. A self-assured, don't-mess-with-me, cocky type of smile and emphatically said that he could sooo do it. Thus began...

*** To be continued ***