Once upon a time in the East

Once upon a time, long long ago … this was when I was in school or was it college … anyway it was a long time ago … before the discovery of the wonder of increasing blood alcohol levels on a daily basis and flirting and then having a full time relationship with the cancer stick.

Anyway long before any of this happened … a professor or was it a teacher of mine … depending on this would also find out when it actually occurred. But I dither and move away from the topic of choice.

So this teacher/professor once told me (WAIT it’s all coming back to me – it was school) … anyway … told me … never go out with more than 1 woman.

Now, growing up was crazy what with hormones acting up and all (whatever!) and having studied in a boys school (and college) and not having been blessed with the 2 attributes which would have allowed me to go out with more than 1 woman or for that matter with even 1 – by which I refer to wealth (don’t remember the parents ever saying … yeh lo … jao 5 star hotel mein daaru peeke aao) and man breasts (the ones which make certain heroes in Bollywood look like the little He-Man toy I had when I was a kid).

Anyway the above ponderings were because as other things that parents, teachers and other supposedly knowledgeable elders told me (including an uncle who, on the threshold of my entry into the hallowed portals of an MBA degree giving institute, told me I could have all the fun I want but not to get married to a non mal and should follow in the footsteps of my father thereby confusing me as to whether he meant the parent had a lot of fun or had married a mal) I turned a deaf ear to this one also. And lo and behold when the girlfriend said … “we’re going to meet my friends”, I said, “Of course!”

Now, people might wonder why I would agree to going out with girlfriend and her friends, whether I was drunk, stoned or otherwise incapacitated/under the influence of a brain numbing drug … for forget the number of girls, you always need someone on your side to fight back the veiled attempts at making you agree to something you don’t need to do when there is number on the other side.

Well, let me rephrase what the girlfriend said … when I wrote she said we are going out … it was not a question nor an offer … it was a statement which if by the strange brain numbing device mentioned above would have been answered in the negative would have been followed by sighs, veiled and not so veiled comments about being boring, old and wondering where life was going, threats of walking out and then the ultimate chick weapon (forget pepper sprays and self defense classes) – the tear factor! Post the “SNIFF SNIFF” would come the “you never do what I want” and when the tears come rolling, the male arrogance just melts and in its place is the trying to placate voice apologizing for all the faults of the same, for past mistakes made future mistakes that will be made and any other crime that any man has ever committed. It stops short of probably apologizing for Adam’s sin.

Anyway, enough of the prelude to the story lets get down to the actual story itself!

So we go to some place which has very uniquely called itself the beach. Very interesting for the city man who doesn’t quite live close to one. Anyway off I trot with the girlfriend in tow (maybe it’s the other way round).

Shock 1 at the place itself: Men have to pay 500 bucks to enter for women; on the other hand, it is FREE! I mean what kind of a cruel unkind world is this … where we have to pay while the women don’t! And they say it’s a man’s world … WHATEVER!

Shock 2 I am at the table with 4 women (some might say why you cribbing … but think of it … by virtue (if that’s the word) of being the girlfriend’s friends … they fall into the category of women you can hit only if you are demented or would want to be assigned to an asylum after torturous sessions of explaining actions, being dumped and off the radar for any girl within a radius of 2m of wherever you walk) not necessarily in that order.

Shock 3 this was to continue for another couple of hours

Well after the initial shocks I stuck in determined to weather the proverbial storm, to prove to the girlfriend that when put in the firing line I could also come out with all guns blazing in a manner of saying.

10 minutes into the dinner I realized that forget guns blazing I would not even have one of those cool knives Rambo used and unarmed combat is never my cup of tea considering my amazing stature (please cut to earlier paragraph about man breasts and a lack thereof for me).

Well the reason that I came to this conclusion was that I had come with a hidden agenda/plan call it what you will … one of those evil/wicked plots whereby I would enjoy and at the same time impress the girlfriend for tolerating such a night. And what was this master plan … watch the match on the giant screen that the thoughtful bar owner had put up.

But here comes the googly … the seats were not in the best position to see the giant screen and the TV was too far away to actually make a difference and then the doosra (just to clarify I can play cricket but only when it is under hand and played with a tennis ball but I still cant ball a googly or a doosra of for that matter a ball which the batsman will miss and not deposit it somewhere very far; as for batting I can only see the ball coming towards me and then too hope it hits the bat and not some tender body part; btw my favourite cricket is the one played in office on a smallish ground where hitting the ball beyond a certain distance gets you a wicket which is pretty cool because I do get a lot of wickets this way.)

Anyway after the googly’s and the doosras and the curses at not having listened to my teacher of a long time ago, I finally contemplated a dinner of doom. Anyway, was thinking shall have a good time with the beer and the food. Bud was keeping me company, the chicken tikka was sizzling on the plate and there was some strange unknown song in the background. Not bad wasn’t too bad I mused, another swig of Bud and another puff taken. Sometime between almost getting lulled by Bud and the ignorable conversation on the table and before I would want to go to pee, for some strange reason totally unknown to any sane human being alive, dead or mummified, the DJ decided to play one of those dhik chik dhik chik numbers. To fully explain that phrase you would need to have lived in Delhi at some point of time in your life. It is not something I would recommend to anyone considering the love the city seems to have for the fairer sex and how secure they feel there. Anyway moving around in Delhi, it is not something 

I had not completed this!