Where Everybody Knows Your Name

For most of you in your twenties, living away from family and working in a big city, you would identify to some extent to the popular sitcoms you binged on through school, college and work: Friends, How I Met Your Mother or The Big Bang Theory. The common thread which runs across all the shows binds you in some ways as well: friends, financial woes, professional disillusionment or relationship issues. But there is one other theme which is prominent across them AND all of us would instantly recognize its significance: A FAVOURITE CAFÉ/BAR TO HANG OUT AT!

So while Sheldon and gang couldn’t get enough of The Cheesecake Factory, the Friends swore by Central Park and Barney and his team drank their way to misery and happiness in the McLarens Pub, in real life, most of us would have SOME place, usually close to home/work which we frequent more than any other. As our life turns upside down, this place stands for some semblance of stability, familiarity and permanence.

Take my case for example. I have been living in Powai for almost five years now. I have changed five houses and two jobs, made new friends and lost a few good ones; I have seen new places come up in the neighbourhood while some others have shut down and I have lived through a fair amount of change over time. But what has not changed is my favourite café/bar: Jugheads. Overlooking the Powai Lake, it’s a fairly shady place, but never empty. This is one place and one relationship which has stood the test of time. Back in 2009, when I had just started working and when I spent most of my salary on rent, Jugheads was one bar which accepted me with open arms and generous Happy Hours. We celebrated most of our successes there: clearing exams, getting married or growing up. We also mourned our sorrows there: breaking up, quitting jobs or leaving the city. Not to mention all the matches we watched or all the fish fingers/cheese chilly toasts/chilly chicken we had. Five years later, I was still there, getting drunk on Happy Hours and polishing off the fish fingers while watching India cream Bangladesh and Australia in one-sided T20 matches. Could I afford to go to a better place: Probably. Did I want to: Probably not.

As things promise to change over the next few months, as close friends move on and as life looks to turn over a new leaf, I get a little scared. But then I look across to the comforting and colourful Jugheads board and I tell myself that it’s going to be ok. The music will remain the same, the cheap alcohol will still be there and the fish fingers will taste as yummy as ever.

And the place where everybody knows your name is still there...

From Monkeys to Men

I have always struggled with the theory of evolution. I mean, come on. One fine day when you are just going about your daily chores, fighting with your spouse, yelling at your kids and abusing your boss, some smart-ass stranger comes up to you, pats you on the back and says matter-of-factly, “dude, by the way, do you know we have a common ancestor? We all descended from monkeys!” The only response you can come up with AFTER you have made up your mind to kill this stranger and feed his remains to Bunty, the dog, is to look at yourself in the mirror, inspect your neatly combed hair, the starched shirt and perfectly ironed trousers, and wonder, “Monkeys? Really?”

But having said that, this weekend reinforced some faith in the theory and the fact that may be, just may be, we ARE indeed monkeys underneath all the veiled sophistication.

So while Thursday night meant getting drenched in the rain and then in alcohol in the nearby shady pub, Friday was about stepping out to an unknown territory (also known as Khar) to another shady place, which proudly called itself, “Three Wise Monkeys”.
But hey, Signature tastes like Signature everywhere and after a few drinks, when there is no wisdom remaining, the place could well have been reduced to “Three Monkeys”, appropriate, given that three of us from college were meeting up.

Saturday was alumni meet night, when you turn up at a Five Star Hotel, hoping for some free booze AND some influential alum who can magically fast-track your career, but just end up hanging out with the same set of loserly batchmates and turning it into one of those age-old drawing room discussions you have had at each other’s place over the last four years. But thankfully, I did manage to catch up some of the other people I had lost touch with over the years, most of who were busy getting married and getting fat, while I was just busy getting fat.

Now Sunday night being Kap’s birthday and since he was sad about turning 27 (sniff sniff), he decided to treat us at “Three Wise Men”, thus allowing our wisdom to leapfrog from the level of monkeys to that of men in just two days! Ahh, the irony of it.
But hey, Signature tastes like Signature everywhere and after a few drinks the place could well have been reduced to “Three Men”, appropriate, given that three of us from college were meeting up.

What with all the free flow of alcohol, I ended the weekend with considerably less wisdom, as depleted as it already was.

But the signature of an evolved wo(man) is that s(he) can hold her Signature with poise and dignity, something I am sure even the wisest of monkeys couldn’t have done…

Pastures of Plenty

It was one of those unusual weekends: when I met people! Now that SH is back from Philippines, she has self-appointed herself to revive my precariously fledgling social life. The good old days when she was in a different country in a different time zone, leaving me to peacefully play freecell and scrabble, watch TV and clean the house are now over, as I am flooded with phone calls/texts/whatsapp messages from her, minutely planning out get togethers/lunches/dinners. Time does fly, especially the good times.

So while Friday night was more about sitting at home, gossiping and planning trips with Dee, the assault started on Saturday morning, with me barely out of the bed, when SH woke me up, demanding to meet for lunch. And since she was coming close to Powai, there was no way I could get out of it. But it was good to see her back in India again, in familiar circumstances, though we met a few months back during our trip to Cambodia and Manila. S was also there, and it was like old times: sharing the sweet corn chicken soup like we did in college! And all I remember about Saturday night are the heavy rains and the bottle of Glenfiddich whisky which got depleted far too quickly in the haze of conversation, memories and new beginnings. And of course, Sunday was spent nursing a hangover, which just, well, hung over my head through the day.

But the weekend also meant quite a bit of self-reflection, leading to the thickened miasma of smoke around me.

May be it’s ok to be confused…
May be it’s ok to not know…
May be it’s ok to take things as they come…
May be it’s ok to not put too much pressure on myself…
May be it’s ok to go with the flow…

But may be it’s NOT ok to have the nagging conscience tug at you constantly…

Chaos

Being a manager is a thankless job. No, I mean, really. I am one of those people who simply hate responsibilities, but the more I run away from them, the more intricately involved I get. I like my work, but I am not obsessive about it. I come to office, do my thing, surf around a bit, listen to some Punjabi music, bitch about people and go home early enough to have a social life if I choose to. It’s altogether another matter that I don’t really have a social life. And for the last couple of years, it had worked wonderfully well. Until a few months back, when I was made the team lead and asked to take responsibility of two guys, who, frankly speaking, behave like kids, providing me with a taste of premature motherhood, sans the joy or the baby-sitting money. And now that we are again in the middle of some mindless restructuring, with looming uncertainty and volatility, the restlessness has just magnified manifold, leaving me completely clueless about pacifying them.

Even my hectic weekend, splashed with alcohol did not help much in calming me down. While Friday night, we drowned our impending unemployment fears in cheap alcohol, Saturday night was spent in celebrating D1’s birthday with more alcohol and cheesecake. It was our first get-together since the December wedding: all eight of us, huddled together abusing each other over a really long game of Pictionary. As always, I was my competitive screaming best, and as always, I finished on the losing side, but that’s not important. What is important is I am good at it. Sunday, we decided to get out of Powai and get some fresh air. In Nehru Science Centre. At times like this, I really wish I had paid more attention in school and got into some IIPM equivalent of an engineering college, just for the heck of it. As we stood in front of the different exhibits, reliving the nightmare of 10th standard Physics, the Amazing Caves Space Odyssey show appealed even to a completely science atheist like me. After my painfully educational afternoon, I thankfully retired to the familiarity of jarring loud music, expensive showrooms, seafood lunch, fat-free icecream, yet more alcohol and IPL on big screen. This was followed by a much-needed stand-up comedy show which had me holding on to my stomach for two hours. Life would be so meaningless without the frivolity of urban life. And Palladium.

But most importantly, I have decided to do deal with the crisis like any self-respecting, escapist corporate manager would do, i.e. go on block leave for two weeks (the employee is forbidden to access work-related emails/phone calls) and distance myself from the situation. Well, not really. But my Eastern European holiday begins tomorrow and since we had already made all the reservations, I did not have the heart to cancel it. It’s not the best time for a vacation, but it also gives me the much-required distance from the chaos.

So, next couple of weeks as I discover a different world, I would be oblivious about my rapidly crumbling reality…

Nothingness

Two words that can change even the most stable, stagnant and constant factors of your life:
Black Label

The Snow White Fantasy

So my last minute hara-kiri before I leave for Switzerland has reinforced my belief in Murphy’s laws once again. Whatever could have gone wrong, HAS indeed gone wrong. What with all the planning and shopping and anxiously watching out for the volatile weather, I somehow forgot to account for the basic stuff: like checking my ticket or getting my pin for the corporate credit card. It is bad enough that I lost my personal credit card over the weekend, but then I realized that I also don’t have any means of withdrawing cash once I reach there. So after panicking for half the day, I somehow sorted that out, and went out for celebrating what I thought was my special Swiss send-off.

And there we were, getting really drunk, really happy about the really long happy hours, soaking it up till well past midnight until they politely threw us out. High and happy, I collapsed on my bed only to be woken up after fifteen minutes by some distressed airport staff asking me where the hell I was (in politer terms) since the flight was ready for departure! I wouldn’t have been more shocked if someone told me that Salman Khan was getting married!

Shaking and incoherent, I kept repeating, “What? But how? Is this a joke? It’s a business class ticket for over a lakh and it’s my first office trip! You can’t be serious!” They firmly informed me that they were leaving and since I wasn’t there, they were leaving without me. I stumbled across to the hall and pulled out my ticket and yes, there it was, in black and white: April 2, 2013! I had officially become a no-show for my first overseas company trip. What was worse is the fact that they couldn’t reach me all this while apparently since I was too busy getting drunk in a bad network zone. The rest of the night I spent alternating between making ranting phone calls to the travel desk and checking ticket prices for the next day, i.e. today. Even the cheap whisky wasn’t enough to drowse me off to sleep.

I almost ran to office as soon as it was dawn, making phone calls and writing threatening emails even though I knew that it was mostly my fault. But finally, they agreed to reissue my ticket for TONIGHT for a charge of five grand. So now that I AM going, I am all freaked out, scared of every step, afraid that I shall screw things up even more. After all, this IS my first solo trip anywhere. After all, this IS the first time I shall experience freezing weather. And after all, this IS my first chance to meet the who’s who of the company.

But more than anything, this IS my first chance to really let go in a new country and discover a new side to me.

This IS my snow white fantasy…

Mein Kampfe

Following my tryst with the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, I realized that my appetite for morbid human depravity is far from being satiated. If anything, it has only been stimulated and lately I had been going back in time, reading about mass atrocities committed by "leaders", trying to understand the twisted psyche that motivated them to commit such outrages.

Which finally led me to Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampfe (My Struggle). Now, I had read Anne Frank’s Diary as a child, well before I read about the Holocaust, and therefore I was not able to fully grasp the context of the book, though purely from the literary point of view, being a pre-teen, I could well identify with some of the nuances plaguing a 13-year old girl. But the historical significance of it was quite wasted on me at that point. Later, when I watched Schindler’s List, it touched a chord, but I never explored it further.

However, once I started planning my visit to Auschwitz this summer (yes, I am on a two-week vacation to Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Krakow and Berlin), I simply had to delve deeper on the subject. So despite all the negative publicity of the book, I picked up Mein Kampfe just to get inside the head of the man himself. Yes, it is an extremely biased portrayal, yes, it’s a tedious task to get through the pages and yes, the language only makes it tougher. But hey, it’s not called Mein Kamfe for no reason!

So on one hand, while I prodded through the book, on the other, I was struggling with my own mind, until, until, until I discovered the magic of the Ultimate Long Island Ice Tea during Happy Hours on a weekday!

Nine drinks later, the struggle seemed to ease off, the vision became a bit blurred and the judgment was hazy…

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Despite my strong communist roots, I have always been a staunch follower of the laissez faire policy. Like most urban middle class kids brought up in the 90s, we believe in liberalization, free market economics, minimum government intervention and zero protectionism. So given my strong capitalist bias, I accepted corporate self-indulgence as a part and parcel of it.

And then I landed up in an Investment Bank. The funny thing is while the money was important (it always is), it wasn’t the driving force behind the decision. I was excited about the opportunity to set up a new team so early in my career, I was motivated by the completely open mandate which gave me the creative freedom to do things my way and I was humbled by the trust and responsibility vested in me. Over the last couple of years, despite all the volatility, the multiple restructuring, the changing hierarchy, we were able to withstand the turmoil, stand our ground and even expand the team, doing more work, better work, building relationships and most importantly doing it our way.

But then I discovered my deep socialist leanings. I was never a conventional corporate person, but I did not think it mattered as long as I did my job, and I did my job really well. The best part of starting a team from scratch was that it allowed me to drive it my way, without falling in the trap of being a typical sycophantic ‘manager’. So I always believed in standing up for the juniors, the new hires or the quieter ones who were bullied, who could not defend themselves and who were the easy targets of senior management. On the other hand, I fought tooth and nail with authority, questioning their practices and demanding more transparency, consistency and fairness. Like a foolish girl (as my dad calls me), I thought I could change the system, I could make a difference and I could prove that I was as good as the rest of them, even though I wasn’t necessarily one of them.

But of course, I lost! I became the popular leader, but not the recognized one; I became the refreshing change, but not the welcome one; I became the respected senior but not the rewarded one.

I became the poor man’s Karna who put up a brave fight but eventually succumbed (to three large pegs of Jack Daniels)…

A Fairy Land called Kolkata

One week of complete indulgence, one big fat Bengali wedding and one family reunion: that sums up my trip to Kolkata!

As always, Kolkata was home, Kolkata was warm despite the chill of winter, Kolkata was hope and Kolkata was family.

My parents showered me with affection and alcohol, literally. Don’t ask me what my mom reads, but apparently she read that beer is good for the hair, which is why she promptly gifted me a Park Avenue Beer Shampoo. My dad, appalled that his sweet little girl, no longer able to withstand the inflationary pressures, has now resorted to Signature as her poison, down from Jack Daniels, tried his best by making me drink Chivas Regal and Black Label on alternate days…

My mom, eager to cook all my favourite delicacies in the limited time, took a leave for four days, only to spend a major part of it in the kitchen as she pampered me with fish fry, chicken roll, puchka, mishit doi and chanachur…

My dad, no longer in touch with contemporary cinema, tried to prove that movies in his youth were much better, as he made me sit patiently through Cleopatra and Guns of Navarone. On the last day, we decided to call it a truce and watched Bombaiyer Bombetey, a recent Feluda movie, but written by Satyajit Ray in his heydays…

My mom, desperate to turn me into a ‘lady’, treated me pretty much like a doll, as she dressed me up in her colourful sarees and accessories for each day of the wedding, while I stood in front of the mirror, resigned to her enthusiasm…

My dad, cribbing that I am blind to the history and culture of Kolkata, accompanied me to the Light and Sound at Victoria Memorial on a journey to discover the rich history and culture of the city and the way it has evolved through time. He also took me on a tour to Budge Budge, where we spent the day by the Ganges, feasting on a delicious lunch, as we stared out to the serene river…

And then, of course, there were my childhood friends, a grand wedding, but most of all, a grander occasion…

May be, just may be, fairy tales are not for kids alone; they do happen in real life as well, especially at home, especially with people who love you no matter what and especially when you need them the most…

Anon Comes to Town

Lately I had been bonding a lot with my OTHER women friends, and it has not gone down too well with anon, as she felt that her status as my best friend was being threatened. Hence, gripped by fear and jealousy, she decided to fly down to Mumbai over the weekend and put things straight. Or that’s the version that I would like to believe…

In reality, since yet another member of our CKB gang was getting married, this time in Mumbai, the outstation members had to come down to offer their condolences. While the wedding was a no-nonsense, one day affair and my first brush with a Maharashtrian ceremony, the rest of the weekend was about me and anon, making the most of our time together. Once more, it hit us, how different we were, once more, we wondered how we have managed to remain friends over the years and once more, we marveled how we resisted from killing each other in Room No. 213. Of course, now that we have booked non-refundable tickets to Cambodia, and would be meeting SH as well, there is much to look forward to!

Saturday night, we threw a bachelor party for the groom, but the only glitch was that the groom wasn’t there. So, the four of us celebrated on his behalf, as the LIT pitchers and the non-veg platters at Out of the Blue seemed strangely inadequate.

Sunday, we had a mini-CKB reunion, as the uncle of the group finally fooled a girl into marrying him before she could change her mind, and we all heaved a collective sigh of relief.

And Monday morning, we left: anon back to Bangalore and me for my one-week vacation to Kolkata.

She came in a breeze, she criticized me in a breeze, and she left in a breeze: mean as ever, annoying as ever and judgmental as ever…

Soulgoats

This weekend Soulgoat was in town, paying through her nose ONLY to meet me. We hurriedly did a detailed calculation and spread her airfare over 3.5 days and came up with a figure of Rs. 125 bucks per hour for her Bombay trip. Now that put me under a lot of pressure to entertain her and make it worth her while and money. For instance, I would not even let her sleep/relax/watch TV as these are things she could have done at home in Delhi for free. To sum up, I was at my obsessive worst, while she patiently put up with me, cooked an awesome lunch on Friday and an equally yummy breakfast on Sunday.

Now I have been friends with Soulgoat for almost five years since we spent two glorious months in Hyderabad while interning with Company D back in 2008. But ever since we both graduated, we have been in different cities, meeting once a year, though we became the best of friends over emails/IM/phone and most recently, the annoying Whatsapp. Since we are cursed with similar personalities (or the lack of it) AND we are fellow Capricornians, we call ourselves Soulgoats. And now that we were meeting after more than a year, we did everything that two women could cram in three days: eat, drink, shop, watch movies and most importantly bitch about the rest of the world!

We ate till we threw up and continued eating: A Bengali dinner at Bijoli Grill, a Parsi lunch at Britannia, a Punjabi lunch at Urban Tadka, coffee at Aromas and Starbucks, snacks at KFC and Theobroma, Pav Bhaji at Sukhsagar, sweets at Bengali Sweets and yogurt at Cocoberry…

We drank till we were dehydrated and passed out: For the first time, we ventured to buy alcohol over the counter from a Theka, squirming in the maze of men, staring us down. But once were home and settled down on the floor with alcohol and snacks, there was no looking back as we abused the entire Universe, sparing nobody…

We visited all the clichéd Bombay places: Linking Road, Waterfield Road, Bandstand, Marine Drive, Churchgate, Gateway of India, Colaba Causeway and Fort…

We shopped till we couldn’t walk anymore: We scrounged through ALL the stores in Palladium, Skyzone and R City, and I HELPED her buy a pretty and colourful dress (a rare diversion from her usual black uniforms) for her upcoming party plans while I bought the MOST expensive outfit for myself, along with shoes, belt, earrings and bracelet for, well, for, MY.NEED.FOR.COMPULSIVE.SHOPPING…

And we also watched Talaash: I know we are not getting back the 700 bucks and precious three hours of our lives back and we are contemplating suing Aamir Khan for his temporary insanity when he signed a movie which had a script as bizarre as it could insult my intelligence more than my boss…

Today morning, when we finally bid goodbye to each other, I realized once more, why we were Soulgoats:

Soul sisters and soul mates may come and go, but soulgoats are forever…

The Quintessential Probashi Bangali

The good thing about Durga Puja is that you get an excuse to meet your close family and friends you genuinely like. The bad thing about Durga Puja is that your OTHER family and friends (whom you DON’T like so much) get to meet you. Usually during the year, I avoid meeting this species by making excuses like distance, long hours at work, severe venereal diseases: basically anything to escape any awkward conversations on marriage, babies and other people’s marriages/babies.

But since it was Ashtomi, favourite uncle is in town and I really wanted to meet him, I had to bear with the OTHER species as well. Now on a normal occasion I would simply take an auto and travel halfway across the city to their place. But given the recent spurt in auto fares AND rampant cheating by auto drivers over and above, I have been taken for a VERY EXPENSIVE ride on several occasions. So this time, I decided to take a bus instead. The peculiar thing I notice is that while most of my friends are moving on to better lifestyles, bigger houses and swankier modes of transport, I am on a downward spiral. Anyway that’s a story for some other day.

Coming back to Ashtomi, I decked up in my best salwar suit, and then very casually walked for 20 minutes to the highway, boarded a crowded bus and reached my destination two hours later, as the bus decided to take the most traffic-laden, roundabout route. By the time I reached, I was a picture of disaster with messy hair, kajal streaking down my face and my pretty salwar suit sticking to me in the humid October evening. But the silver lining is that it cost me only about thirty bucks, and in bad times like this, I shall live with it. I managed to get through the rest of the evening, pandal hopping, posing for happy family pictures and finally squeezing ourselves in Out of the Blue, JUST before the last order. I am not quite sure what happened after that, as I busied myself with the food and alcohol, blocking out all the discussions on marriages, babies and other people’s marriages/babies.

The next day was Navami, i.e. the last day of Navratri and a Gujarati friend of mine took us to a Dandiya event. Now, as I have reiterated several times on this blog, I am no dancer, and especially when it comes to dancing with sticks, let’s just say I would do a better job with a baseball bat. But since I have never been to a Garba before, I decided to tag along anyway, taking pictures and helping myself to some Gujju ‘snakes’ in the food stalls, as the colourful crowd whirled and twirled effortlessly in synchronized circles.

Finally, yesterday being a holiday for Dushera (Bijoya Doshomi as we call it), we made the most of it, watching Chakravuh followed by a sumptuous Bengali lunch of fish fry, loochi and kosha mangsho at Oh Calcutta! after waiting for 40 minutes to get a table. By the time we finished at 4:30, we were the only people in the restaurant. We also went to the newly opened Starbucks at Fort, and I was simply blown away by the décor of the place. Now, I have had the Starbucks coffee and muffin at multiple places each time I have traveled abroad, and blame it on my middle class lack of refinement, I have never understood what the big deal was. I was happy with my filter coffee at the Madras Café at one-fifth the price. So when I read about the huge hype generated when the chain opened its first store in India last week, I dismissed it yet another instance of our wannabe mentality. But now that I have been there, I would unwillingly admit that it was a good experience, despite the complicated ordering/paying/service mechanism. I am sure it was devised by some nerdy, MBA graduate from Tamil Nadu who used all sorts of Queuing Theory algorithms to come up with it.

Then, just to keep up with tradition, we went to Tejpal Hall and Shivaji Park to watch the last minute paraphernalia, when hordes of Bengali women dress up in the traditional red and white sari and do all the sindoor jazz, just before the visarjan. There is something extremely nostalgic about Bijoya Doshomi which manages to break down even a hardened agnostic as me. As irreligious as I am, I couldn’t help feeling a little sad, a little depressed and a little homesick, with glimpses of my childhood days flashing in my mind.

So we did what any self-respecting Probashi Bangali would do on Doshomi: go to Hard Rock Café and get drunk.

And for a change, the music wasn’t loud, the silence wasn’t deafening and the calm wasn’t stormy…

Being free

So we have three national holidays in a year: Republic Day, Independence Day and Gandhi Jayanti. Now people demonstrate their patriotism in different ways: maintaining a ban on alcohol, listening to patriotic music and watching movies which unite all parts of India: like Border, Bombay and Andaz Apna Apna. For me though, it works a little differently. I spend ALL my national holidays in Bangalore, Koramangla to be specific, with anon and the guys from college.

There I was again, on an extended weekend: three of the hottest women in K/M (anon, DB and me), four of the sweetest guys on the verge of life-changing events (getting married/having kids/moving to new jobs) and Neil, the ultimate wannabe who tries to fit in but cannot, doing all the things that has made us happy over the years.

So, we lounged around the house, eating homemade paranthas and rajma chawal made by anon and DB, watching India Pakistan and playing above-mentioned patriotic music in the background, binging on cheap alcohol while we gossiped till late at night.

We discussed Indian history the way it would make our historians turn in their grave as we watched Jodha Akbar.

We went to Jimmi’s, being the only ones there on a Saturday afternoon, as we drank at a godforsaken hour and then to Egg Factory for the biggest Sunday brunch of my life.

We sat on the terrace, smoking and discussing ‘deep, philosophical aspects of life’ till we got bored of our own voices.

We saw Vir Das perform live as we doubled up in laughter, holding our stomach till we felt we would explode.

We went to the Hard Rock Café and drank till we puked, hoping the loud music would drown the deafening silence.

Then there were the non-human elements like Dhaula, the dog and Kasturi, the GPS voice, both of which formed an important element to the weekend.

And then I came back, feeling empty, not wanting to leave, not wanting to let go and hoping for the never-ending freedom that no national holiday can offer…

Save the Last Dance

There are two things which I hate more than anything else, i.e. weddings/receptions/engagements and dancing, and this weekend I was subjected to both!

Now, I have trained as a classical dancer for nine years and got myself a diploma in Bharatnatyam since my parents were a little worried with my academic performance (or the lack of it) and decided to enroll me into an alternate career path, just in case. But all those grueling sessions in Alarippu, Jatiswaram, Shabdam, Varnam etc. and the pages and pages of history of evolution, decline and rebirth of the dance form, since the tender age of five have left me scarred for life, and every time someone even SUGGESTS dancing, I break down, pretty much like the Greece defence against Germany. So, despite all the dancing in the dark in college thanks to all the freshers’ parties, rooftop parties, birthday parties, new year’s eve parties and farewell parties, I am still as awkward as Sonam Kapoor in an interview, when it comes to dancing in office parties. Hence, my standard solution in any social situation which involves some amount of dancing is to hide in one corner, drinking excessive amount of alcohol and avoiding eye contact with the dancing queens/kings. I sincerely believe (and I can’t stress this enough), dancing simply KILLS the joy of unlimited free alcohol. All I need to complement an open bar is some good music, a sports channel (preferably with some live action) and a few friends who know when to be quiet. So on Friday night, when I was convinced that I had abused the free food and the combination of Antiquity Blue/Smirn Off/Blue Riband, I sneaked out of an office get-together as my so-called ‘friends’ gatecrashed into my house, with more alcohol and combiflam to rejuvenate me. BUT THIS TIME THERE WAS NO DANCING, as we put on some music, made ourselves comfortable on the floor, opened up the JD and Old Monk bottles and watched a GREEK TRAGEDY in the hands of the Germans. Now, that’s perfection personified…

If that wasn’t enough, two of my closest friends decided the get engaged (to each other), considerably weakening my Singledom Brigade. I was there, again, awkward and uncomfortable in a saree, trying to fend off curious family friends/acquaintances. Since I have grown up with both these friends as neighbours in Kolkata, I was an easy target for all the familiar faces who annoyed me as a kid and continued to bombard me with unsolicited advice like they did ten years back. From “Don’t worry beta, there is a private engineering college in Jhumritalaiya and I know the Director there. I am sure if I put in a good word, he would admit you to their Civil Engineering branch, which usually has a few seats left anyway” to “Don’t worry beta, I know this guy whose parents are looking for a girl. He has done his Civil Engineering from Jhumritalaiya Institute of Technology and is working with TCS. I shall put in a good word for you”, the circle was finally complete.

Somehow, I managed to survive the ceremony, posing for the pics and holding on to my drapes, as my friends also barely made it, overwhelmed with all the good wishes, hugs and the general aura of everlasting happiness (plastered smile causing havoc with jawline). But the real fun began after the ceremony as eight of us squeezed ourselves in an Alto and escaped to Marine Drive to cleanse our system of all the premonitions of a joyous union. While my friends heaved a sigh of relief, I stared out at the Queens Necklace and the stereo blared out the Eurythmics number: “Sweet Dreams are Made of These”

And then we danced, in the dark, in the rain, in the middle of the road…

The Hangover

The last couple of weeks have been unsettling, to put it mildly. For someone who is resistant to change, too many things are happening too fast: not all of it is bad, mind you; but it’s change all the same. So far I was dealing with it in a matured manner, i.e. binge drinking, binge eating and binge reading.

There is a certain amount of comfort in those tequila shots…
There is a certain amount of familiarity in the butter chicken and rumaali roti…
There is a certain amount of feel-good factor in the crunchy chocolate bar…
There is a certain amount of relief in the pages of an old cult classic…
There is a certain amount of pleasure in spending two hours in a shady theatre laughing out loud…
There is a certain amount of security in the repeat episodes of Friends and BBT…
There is a certain amount of joy in browsing through the new collections in the shoes section…
There is a certain amount of happiness in long phone conversations and text messages…

There is still something to look forward to…

The Other End of the Tunnel

You know one of those weekends when tragedy strikes? The kind of tragedy that you have nightmares about, the kind of tragedy that’s predestined, the kind of tragedy over which you have no control. It’s like being in a second class compartment of a C’gate-Virar local. Once you somehow manage to get in, you surrender to your destiny. You have no option but to live with the push and the shove, go along the direction of the crowd, get out only when you are allowed to. There is no turning back and there is no looking back. It’s unidirectional.

This weekend was something that movies are made of, bestsellers are created and hundreds of sitcom episodes are churned out; this weekend was about looking back till we could no longer remember what childhood was all about; this weekend was about drowning ourselves in sorrow and alcohol till we could block out the harsh realities; this weekend was about looking towards the heaven and asking God, “why God why are you doing this to us?”

JDs and Talisker Single Malts notwithstanding, this weekend was depressing and the haze just refuses to go away.

This weekend was about turning thirty…

Short and Sweet

1.I watched Chaalis Chaurasi, the worst movie with two of the best actors (Nasiruddin Shah and Kay Kay Menon). Talented people make horrible choices.

2.I am no longer a whisky virgin. I made my JD debut and I feel extremely grown up now.

3.Come tomorrow and we are headed to Bangalore for our Mysore-Coorg roadtrip.

Life is short and sweet… pretty much like my bonus

Who Let the Dogs Out?

So the much awaited dreaded company annual party happened on Friday night at (the garage of) The Intercontinental. The food was awful, but obviously noone cared, because of the OPEN BAR and the home drop facility. The idea was to officially get all employees smashed. Now I have this peculiar drawback in my otherwise flawless character: I CAN NEVER GET DRUNK AT OFFICE PARTIES. I guess the sight of your boss in a red T shirt (don’t blame him, the dress code was red and black) takes all the fun out of the red wine. So there I was, holding my glass of orange juice and holding my breath simultaneously to tuck in the stomach flab, wishing I had listened to my mom, when she suggested I buy the dress in one size bigger. But no, I take pride in squeezing myself in the smallest size available, though I can barely breathe in it.

Anyhow, as the three of us took a stroll in the quiet, breezy lane outside the hotel, NOT NETWORKING, I was so glad that my happiness was not defined by the empty chitchat of senior people, the smoky dancefloor or the pungent smell of alcohol…

I was so glad that I was still untouched by this aspect of the corporate world…

I was so glad that I was still not completely consumed by Mumbai…

I was still me…

Homecoming

I assure you this weekend was more than just going back to college, meeting the same set of people, talking about the same stories for the hundredth time, going for a sleepy LONG drive to Mulshi dam, drinking, having breakfast at Café Good Luck, lunch at Blue Nile, high tea at Chaitanya and dinner at Mezza9.

It was also about suffering a slow death inflicted by Nargis Fakhri. Katrina Kaif, take a bow. You have competition. Who said, you can’t act?

Now, as a group, we are very diverse. We have very different personalities, tastes and opinions, which is why it takes us at least 30 minutes to reach a consensus, even on simple things like in what order we should use the loo. The process can go on for over two hours if it involves critical issues like, say, how to have fun, because we can’t even decide on a common DEFINITION of fun. But Rockstar achieved what nobody else had ever managed: instant agreement.

Anyway, moving on, the trip reminded us of the old days, the carefree life, the little things that made the two years so special. But it also confirmed something which we already suspected, i.e. certain things/people never change:

Like the awesomeness of the bun maska/baked beans on toast/scrambled eggs at Good Luck, the Patiala lassi and parantha at Chaitanya and the joy of ravishing daal chawal at 1 a.m. after four hours of binge drinking…

Like repetition of the same jokes which still manages to bring a smile on your face…

Like huddling over the laptop to watch old videos and snaps and randomly hugging each other…

Like revisiting every corner of the college and trying to recreate the same memories: sitting on the swing where we had our ‘deep conversations in the dark’, crowding around in front of the Sweety Stores (only it’s now called the Rangoli Stores), arranging ourselves in the exact order in which we used to sit/sleep in the classroom (Room No. 307) or sitting opposite the canteen by the Zenia flowerbed (the guys arguing over who gets to face the girl’s hostel)…

Like barging into Room No. 213 (the hostel room we shared) and squealing like excited schoolgirls as we posed for random pics (me cursing ‘my’ wardrobe by the door)…

Like the guys taking care of us (booking cabs, buying tickets, food and alcohol, arranging mattresses and pillows, making tea and waking us up in the morning) while we let them…

But then, we also noticed the differences: like getting older, getting married, talking about bosses/investments/property/family, tiring more easily and slowly giving in to mundane mediocrity…

As I tossed and turned on a rented mattress, I found myself a little less impulsive, a little less spontaneous, a little less uninhibited and a tad more scared than I was two years back…

Message in a Bottle

This is an alcohol post… pure, unadulterated, shaken but not stirred, though it does stir up quite a lot of memories!

Now people who know me well will vouch for the fact that I am an occasional drinker, who, can at max hold five (at times as little as two and a half) drinks. Anything more than that, then beware of your car/home/clothes, because I can throw up on any of them. And that too, as my dad aptly says, like all other things (meaning guys), I have very immature taste in alcohol as well and his isolated attempts to help me acquire the taste of whisky or red wine have fallen flat. Me, I prefer to stick to my breezers/ vodka/ gin/ tequila/ LIT/ margarita and the occasional sex on the beach (the cocktail).

Over the years, I can confidently say that alcohol is one thing that has stood by me thick and thin, in the hardest of times as well as the happiest of days.

My tryst with alcohol started in high school, when as a seventeen-year-old, I was pining for my “best friend” who was leaving the city for good and we drowned ourselves in an entire bottle of port wine kept in the fridge and then filled it up with water. Ahh… “love”, separation and alcohol make for a lethal hangover…

My initial days in Bombay were pretty mundane, when I was this sincere, demure career-oriented CAT-oriented girl, “who did not want to let her parents down or misuse the trust vested in her” (my mom’s words, not mine). So for three years, I just studied, topped my exams, took CAT classes, discovered the joys of roadside shopping and street food, without giving in to peer pressure to party. Thankfully, I never felt I was missing something, as I watched sloshed girls sneaking into the hostel from the safety of my 8/8 room. May be the watchful eyes of my religious Muslim roomie who prayed twice a day and stayed away from all the ‘vices’ kept me in my senses…

But soon, I was working (after failing to crack CAT in my first attempt) and then I decided enough was enough. Being “good” and “responsible” was getting me nowhere AND my above-mentioned “best friend” was now moving to the States which meant our occasional phone calls and annual Kolkata meets would also come to an end. Now that I had a little money, it was time to “misuse the freedom and trust vested in me” by my parents. So the next year, I really “discovered” all that Bombay is famous for. The vodkas and the LITs poured in, affections were showered, the music became louder, the nights longer and the morning-after hangovers more frequent. So yes, I was finally ready for B school…

The key takeaway from MBA was discovering my OTHER passion (writing, and no, the first one isn’t finance). But very close was our ability to find the most creative excuses for drinking. You give us an event (say xyz company is visiting the campus for placements) or a non-event (xyz company cancelled its visit due to recession) and we would automatically reach for the bottle. And then add to it, freshers’ parties, farewell parties, birthday parties, clearing exams, failing exams, placements, lack of placements, Neev, Kerala, Goa, well, you get the picture…

Company D was just an extension of college, except now there were occasional company-sponsored parties which meant you could get drunk for free. And now that we had more money and we were yet to learn to cook, we would be eating out multiple times a week, and of course, no self-respecting first-year analyst has ONLY dinner at a restaurant. But, but but, then we discovered the beauty of home-delivery of alcohol. So on a particularly lazy weekend, we could just order for tandoori chicken, beer and vodka to be delivered right at our doorstep. Of course, having a flatmate who prided herself on her “refined tastes” and relaxed with a glass of whisky after a long day, was constant peer pressure, one that I didn’t mind giving in to. Now that bachelor parties were starting to slowly replace birthday parties, the only thing that restored the sanity was alcohol. Admittedly, I have a very poor track record as far as bachelor parties are concerned (I have thrown up on each of them), but I completely blame the enormity of the occasion rather than my inability to hold my drink.

And then it was new year’s eve… and it turned out to be the longest and most expensive hangover of my life!

After some impromptu drinking binges, t-shirts soaked with tears and sweeping changes, I am sober again, and except the occasional moment of weakness, I stay conscious and careful and very much in control…