Conversation

R: Do you want to play Dumb Charades?

Me: Yes, let's! But we'll need to get the others to play too, not just the two of us.

R: Yes. Because that would be dumb.

Me: It would be a charade.

R: Yup. We're all done here, aren't we?

Requiem

Bharat's gone.

I can't believe it, it's not real. Even after two days, every ten minutes or so, it suddenly hits me again. And again. And again. I'm thinking of a funny story, telling someone about our crazy days together, and saying, "Bharat is this totally something guy..." and suddenly I realise that he isn't any longer - he was.

It's unreal. An Omen-ish quality of nightmare: blue skies and light wood and sunshine and laughing people getting on with their lives and all the while, a voice inside me is repeating no NO NO it's a mistake it can't be true it's a horrible horrible mistake and I'll wake up tomorrow and the world will be normal again and all 7 of us will be whole and alive and still ready to conquer the world - as we were 7 years ago, the unstoppable team ready to change the universe. And all the while, in my head, a refrain plays itself over and over again: And then there were six.

How long it's been, the road we've travelled together. Seven years ago, seven kids set out to conquer the planet. We were kings, lords, the world was our oyster and we knew we could do anything - anything at all; we were family, we drank together and starved together, and burnt the candle at both ends together and pulled each other through rough patches. And when the year was up, we still held on to the threads, wherever we were, as went our own ways. And now there are only six, scattered, shattered, drawn together in a virtual group hug of sorrow and solace and shared tears and memories - team days and team building, but Bharat's not here, never will be and oh god it's so unfair and pointless and stupid and there's nothing anybody can do and the world no longer makes any sense.

I don't know whether I believe in the immortal soul. But I think I believe that somewhere, Bharat's sitting on a cloud in the sunshine. Drinking some good whiskey, smoking a cigarette, relishing his butter chicken. Looking down to tell us, "chalo, koi nahin." And as squints into the sun and takes a drag on the cigarette, he slaps his thighs and laughs out loud - with his particular guffaw - at the absurdity of the world.

I get by with a little help from my friends

I might have moped all weekend. I could have sat in my hotel room, mournfully, eaten inedible micro-wave dinners, watched TV and fallen progressively further and further into utter and complete gloom while the world draped itself in sinister shadow and rattled its bones in the chill wind and under the darkling skies ghosts shuffled along paths laid with dead leaves.

But N came over Friday night, bearing food for the stomach, beer for the soul and conversation for the brain. And M and V followed on Saturday, and whisked me off to warmth and laughter and home and family till I more or less totally forgot that I was far from everything dear and familiar and felt like I was home again, and completely confused all my "here"s and "there"s.

Bless them, bless 'em all.

There are more impressions forming, but for now, while I'm still drunk on weekend contentment, let them rest. Peace on earth and goodwill to all; I hope you had a wonderful weekend and managed to get your hands on the Half Blood Prince.

warm glow evening

light rain-laden evening breeze drifts over balcony through doors wraps itself around golden lamplight drapes itself around us cradling coffees and teas and smokes variously conversation flows connections happen memories flutter awake laughter and light and warmth and Baileys feet up on the couch silver glints in soft light welcome to the machine but here for an instant take a break fall back into timeless friendship no words needed being there is enough the air pregnant with shared pasts left behind listening to Shirley Bassey I don't give a damn about lost emotions and for once our ghosts don't crowd us and there is peace and laughter and wonder that this can still be

Another Proxy

Work piled all the way up to the stratosphere. Here's another transcription pretending to be a post. From years ago.



I came to your city
And you met me at that ungodly hour,
Wide-eyed and unsleepy.

You gave me your cactus to hold
Soft solky bristles small green in brown earth
Translucent blue pot
While you drove across town to give it to someone.
You took me home to your little room in a corner tucked away
Under roof, windows open on green and sunlight
Reminds me of home
And shared with me your city, your people, your smile.

And if only for half a day
I want to thank you for your cactus
Your little room
Your sudden smile.

Last Waltz

An awful song I used to listen to when I was a kid was by Engelbert Humperdinck . Something about having the last waltz with you, two lonely people together, and so on. Awful music, awful words, totally dismal and melancholy, and not in a good way. Though, I imagine, if you got saddled with a name like that, you'd sing songs like that too.

The connection between Engelbert and this post is that the old gang recently had our last dance in a while. After Gokul's on Friday night, we hit a disc called Polyester - a rocking place. Retro music (70s and 80s, rock), crowded like local trains but otherwise altogether perfect. The best thing about a crowd is the support it gives you. You don't have to exert any energy to stay upright!

So anyway, driven by the music (I mean, where does one hear music ranging from the BeeGees to the Bangles to the Eurythmics to Aha to Tears for Fears to... you get my drift.), we danced non-stop from 12 midnight to 4:30 a.m. Insane, sweaty dancing in crowded, smoke-filled rooms where you're constantly running the risk of having someone inadvertantly stub out their cigarette on your arm and where you can't hear anything your companions say - what could be a bigger turn-on?!!

Finally weaved our way out, fully intending to go home and play scrabble. Unfortunately, as most of us fell asleep during the journey back to the burbs, that plan didn't quite work out. (This is when you find old age creeping up on you... a few years ago, we'd have been up for scrabble and more alcohol and more activity, even after such a night!)

Getting together and doing this after a significant period, it's good to see that we can still do it. That the music still sets us on fire, that we can still boogie anybody under the table, that we can still drink through the entire night without throwing up all over someone else's shoes!

So for those of you who are in Mumbai, and want to dance the night out to retro rock, and can't find people who want to do the same - gimme a buzz, and I'll be there with my hair in a braid, a la P. G. Wodehouse. All that's required is that you enjoy dancing. And if you're an idiot, it won't matter - I won't be able to hear what you say.

It's Late in the Evening...

Another heady Friday night. It's almost 9:00 and I'm still in office. But, but, but, not for long.

Tonight's the night we relive our AIESEC days. Of course, we've all come a long way since the time we lived on cheap beer and no food. We can now afford to drink much more, to drink better stuff and to dance all night at a disco instead of to dancing to MTV in our own house. Best of all, we can now travel by cab instead of lying on Marine Drive, waiting for the first train in the morning to go back home.

So here's the scene. Before Malli leaves the city sometime next week, tonight, we will go to all our old haunts. Tonight, nobody is allowed to say, "But I'm working tomorrow."

First stop: Gokul's. The first time I went to Gokul's, I treated it as one of the hotspots of Bombay and wrote about it to everyone... till my brother wrote back saying it was a noted gay pick up joint... at which point, I quietly retracted all statements about going there regularly. Strategically placed next to Bade Miyan's, the freakiest roll shop outside of Calcutta, Gokul's is a place we could afford in d.a. (Days of AIESEC), and where we didn't much care about the seedy old men thronging the place.

In the Days of AIESEC, we used to occasionally (read: whenever we had money) go get smashed at Gokul's. Then we would roll out and across the road to Bade Miyan's, where we would sit on the curb(there were hardly ever any chairs available) and eat baida roti and sheekh kabab rolls. Immediately, our drunkenness would abate somewhat, at which point we could head back into Gokuls. (This would have been a wonderful infinite loop, return to step one types, had it not been for the fact that even Gokul had to close its doors for some hours. And, of course, the fact that we'd have already used up our meagre resources!)

By which time we would have missed the last train back, so we would spend the night on Marine Drive and make it back by the first train in the morning. (And for those uninitiated into the mysteries of those Mumbai transportational wonders - even that first train at 4:00 a.m. is crowded.)

So tonight's gonna be another of those nights... Thank god for small mercies... that even with progress (read: moolah), we can still go back to Gokul's, and enjoy the seedy atmosphere, the boiled eggs and tiny pieces of cheese cubes skewered on toothpicks that are Gokul's choice of "snakes". That we realise that enjoyment is in the soul, not in the surroundings, and that if Bade Miyan was a 5 star restaurant, it wouldn't be any more attractive than it is now... And, most of all, that we'll be able to take a cab back, and not have to spend the night on Marine Drive. Fun as some things are, they're SO much better in one's memory than when they're relived.

Another One Bites the Dust

Just a few days ago, another old friend Tied The Knot. Took The Plunge. Did The Deed. Lost His Virginity. (Or, well, so we assume.) So many euphemsims for a single idea: he deserted those of us who are still single. In the undying words of Bridget, another one has become part of the Smug Married brigade.

Of course, I couldn't attend the wedding. That's what corporate life is about. You plan something, and plan something, and at the last minute, all your planning comes to nought, and you just wing it. (Of course, when you're reading this in reference to flying to someone's wedding, winging it can have very different connotations - "Look, Ma, I'm flying, I'm flying, I'm... THUD".)

Still, I saw the pics that another friend took and posted on the web. All those familiar faces together, the dearly beloved, gathered there... Takes me back years and years, to when they were pimply adolescents (I may or may not have been an adolescent but I deny ever having been pimply!) and we used to hang out outside school, trying to get to know the opposite sex without being seen to be trying!

Of course, that was the beginning. (WARNING WARNING WARNING Authoress about to get maudlin.) Much water has passed under the bridge since those days. We've spent 12 years seeing each other through tough times, from heart-break to moral support in the face of family when we've wanted to marry unsuitable people. 12 years of laughing together about no reason that any outsider (even the unsuitable people we've wanted to marry) would understand. (Sometimes, even we don't understood why we're laughing.)

So here's the thing. It's been years, and we've reached a stage where even when we want each other there through birthdays, weddings, and umm... afterwards ("Psst. I'm calling while she's in the loo. Quick, tell me, what goes where? And HOW?"), it's still OK if we can't make it - the people whose birthdays and weddings we miss understand the reasons, and forgive us for not being there.

Right, Sundeep? Sundeep? Now where did he go?

Weekday Debauchery

This is a story about why one should not drink on week days, and especially not with ex-AIESECers. We tend to overdo things. We con ourselves into believing that "at work we are animals, at parties we are beasts" still applies to us.

Our original plan last evening was to meet at Starters, have a drink, go have dinner somewhere. I mean, come on, we're all getting old-ish, we're all working, we all have important meetings early morning. So what if Malli and Nandu are quitting their jobs and going off to B schools in the US - they still
have to get to work in the mornings, right?

Anyway, as I said, that was the original plan. (Remember that little saying about noble intentions?)

So. We drank like fish. Each of us began (it being the last few minutes of happy hours) with 2 drinks. Then, since Malli is on extremely good terms with the management, we drank two more (with Happy Hours being extended just for us). Then 2 more. And then yet another 2. And so on... By 12, when we thought we should perhaps leave, Malli decided that we needed to "skoll" shots. So, regardless of what each of us had been drinking, he ordered some
highly suspect fluid which he insisted that we pour down our gullets.

Even though we could barely stand by then, we did the damn
shots. And then Malli ordered more. And more. And more. Turns out the bartenders are on Malli's personal payroll. (They worship his idol with incense, and appease him with offerings of the-drink-of-the-day and batter-fried peanuts.)

And then there was the karaoke. We discovered a new law: for every 2 songs we sing, 4 people leave the room. Empirical evidence was collected, random numbers generated and simulations run to check the law, and it turned out to be spot on! But it's tremendous how karaoke can bring people together.

To begin with, you have to be almost lip to lip to be able to get your voice on the mike at all. Then, all the people karaokeing are desparately trying to drown out the karaoke organiser, the one guy who can actually hold a tune so that you can hear your own voices - so there's some amount of empathy and team-feeling that grows there. (And, needless to say, only groups who have karaoke-ers cheer and clap after you karaoke, because they know that when they go maul some number, you're the only ones who'll cheer for them.)

[HR teams should learn from this. I am willing to elaborate on my theory of how embarassing activities that you would never perform in your right mind can create intense team spirit, and on how to harness this in organisational behaviour. At a fee, naturally, which we can discuss when you HR people call me.]

To cut an already very long story short, I managed to roll home at 2:00 a.m. Have somehow managed to make it into work on time today, but have 50,000 hammers beating every part of the inside of my head. Couldn't even sleep in the train cos the train noises kept time with the hammers and formed a full-percussion orchestra playing "50 ways..."

And Malli, the man who started it all? He didn't even make into work this morning!