Lobo Lobo and F20

Illustration/Uday Mohite

Lobo Lobo, my cable TV cum AC technician, cum small parts mechanic "vroomed" into my home on a snazzy two wheeler.

"Lobo Lobo, hello, what's going on? Why the windswept look, the goggles and you're riding uhm… what is it a 50s Vespa, a 60s Lambretta?" I asked as he swaggered into my home.

"Arrey Dikuna men, wot your saying, chhe, it is a souped up Yamaha, which I buyed in the 70s, I call her Raquel… named after Raquel Welch. You remember na dat bombshell actress?'

"All that is fine, but can you elucidate on what's going on?"

"Dikuna, what means ‘Lucy date'..?"

"Um I meant... can you expand?"

"See Dikuna men, let me essplain to you, see you must be reading in de news men, all dis disaster wid dis Ettonall and all."

"Ethanol," I corrected him.

"Yeah yeah men, wotever… ya dat wot dey call E20 no men, socko problems it is cozzing to vehicles that were made before, dat dis E20 has fully buggered up dese petrol cars, but dere tinking is correct, how to make cars, foe wheeelers and two wheelers, fule efficient. See, my turd cuzzin from mudders side, Damascus D'Cruz, he has dat one gariijj in Jogeshwari East, Durandhar Car & Bike, de garijj is called. He tolded to me, see dis damn blinking E20 is made up of all dese liquids, and udder materials. E20 has sugarcane ‘ganne ka juice' mixed inside, arrey dere is corn, our wochyoucall ‘makai', and udder such starch and sugar and dat maize, all mixed up to make Ettonall."

I feared the worst where this was going.

"So men I am tinking along wid my cuzzin brudders Damascus and his bros, Detroit, and Assisi, dat why we not make our own fule. Wot dey call it, our own bye-o-fuel.

See men, us Goans we have many many liquids, we use in our ‘kaana -peena'. So, Damascus, Detroit and his sons Dhaka and Dublin, we decided why not we make dis fuel from Feni. Our own Feni, if dey can make E20 from sugarcane why not we make fule our from Feni or F20 - de premium fule will be made from Palm Feni for all dose hi fi cars like Rolls and Mercs and de economic fule we make from from dat Cashew Feni, and for dese aajoo-bajoo scooties, we use nariyal pani… coconut water. Aree what a kick it is. So, de Feni fuel is called short form F20. If you put half tank it is F30 ad full tank it is F60. Den I have one dat uncle lives Bhayandhar side, Cocteau Carvalho, is his name, he had one more bright idea, he told us, why not we make some fule from vinegar... not dat pure vinegar dat goes into vindaloo and sorpotel, but distilled vinegar, we put tru a process along with chorizo and balchao and fermented bibinca, and add some ground pao into the mix. He had set up a small lab in his backside of house, to make dis Vinegar fule, and den voila we have one more type of liquid for cars and bikes. We'll call it V20.

Dikuna men, you know how like wen we get older we have dis botox votox, V20 is like botox for de vehicle. I put some V20 into my Raquel, ufff wot a ting, you jest put de scootie in first gear and vroooom you go… arrey almost like you fly! I was zipping all around Virar peepuls are like socko impressed, wowie dey all say," Lobo Lobo said.

"Chalo I am going to ‘go bouncing'."

"Where are you going?"

"See men, all my dat frends dey all have ideas to convert food substances into fule. My neighbour Stalin Swamy Swaminathan, says, ‘hey saar, why not we make a fuel from rasam and some curry, little sambhar, uff deadly it'll be. Rasam and sambhar together will be called, ‘Rambhar' it will be R20," Lobo Lobo, concluded.

Rahul da Cunha is an adman, theatre director/playwright, filmmaker and traveller. Reach him at rahul.dacunha@mid-day.com