It has been a really long time since my last post. My entire world has changed in the past 2 years. I guess this is the time when you are 2-3 years into your professional career and you start to realize that life has many more dimensions to it than just coming and slogging in office.
So then your priorities in life start changing: Instead of coming early to office to complete the pending work of the previous night, people come early to reserve the pool table - this happens because of the work saturation.
Ambitions start changing: Previously we wanted to just manhandle some irritating pricks, whereas now we want to strangulate them, chop off their limbs, neatly parcel each and every organ and mail it to each and every corner of the earth so that even if GOD sends them back from the dead, they may never come back in one-piece. This happens firstly because we have so much time on our hands that innovation creeps into every task that we undertake and secondly because some people have become so damn unbearable that it seems highly unlikely that just killing them will rid us off the trouble.
Your English starts changing: Well not everybody’s does, but as I took the GRE some days back ostentatious indecipherable words have somehow seeped into my vocabulary which has made my communication not just cryptic but also vexing. And while I personally bemoan the usage of such pompous speech, I can’t disregard the effort I spent trying to fuse them into my vocabulary. Hence in case you see any tawdry word in the following compilation, gracefully acknowledge my humongous effort and move on.
But the one thing that does not change is your friends. Well some may argue that most of our friends change during this exact period as all those who looked like natives of famine struck places of Somalia, today look like the pot-bellied merchants of Surat. So I would like to clear it in advance my change was only limited to the inside of the person. (“Inside” in this context refers to the soul of the person, so don’t start ripping off the clothes of your friends to check whether he’s still the same from inside :P). Anyways the reason why your friends haven’t changed is that they are exactly in the same boat as you are, they are equally frustrated about the boredom at work, equally mad at the organizations which are not paying them enough, and each of them has at least one person around them whom they would like to rip open with their bare hands and smear the blood victoriously on their foreheads. But the most important commonality is that there is a silent fear at the back of every head that the marvelous time which we had together is going to end soon as life is going to send all of us on separate paths and with no guarantee that we shall have ever a moment with all our friends together.
This was exactly why all our friends from the glorious albeit infamous FG4TG decided that it would be fun to go on a trip before some of our friends go onsite, some go for higher studies and some rot in the same old hell better known as office. And like it is a golden rule of all events with more than one person, that the arranging of the event turns out to be a fiasco (GRE Word :D). First we argue on the location, then the duration and finally when we decide for a one-day trip on the weekend, it boils down to half people vouching for Sunday and half insisting on Saturday. But in the end we managed to get a consensus on Saturday the 14th day of June 2008. The venue was going to be the ghats of Malshej which according to Kshitij was a heaven of Waterfalls, but according to someone else was a haven for the drunken tourists of the entire Maharashtra. But we claimed of even worse drunkards in our troop, names withheld, so we decided to go ahead with the plan. On Friday we started our preparation for the trip with Kunal arranging for transport, Kshitij arranging for the route of the bus (which again was a disputed topic) and the boarding point for the public. Meanwhile I was reading on the internet about Friday the Thirteenth as that day was 13th June 2008 and a Friday. And as I read ridiculously unbelievable stories about how 13 people on one gathering are bound to call upon ill-fate on themselves, I kept laughing at how absurd can people get with the fear of the number 13. My ridicule was short lived as the next morning I got to know that the number of people who had agreed to the trip had come to 13. And how much ever irritating our stupid driver was, I was glad that he formed the 14th member of our squad and rid me of my anxiety.
Saturday dawned and all of us worked hard to meet the departure time of 6:30. Nishikant and me reached Tejas Office, Kothrud at 7:10. We saw the indistinct mane of Amey (which would have put Queen Latifa’s hairstyle to shame) who had arrived some time ago. The bus reached there at around 7:15 with Kuldeep, Rewa, Devi and her husband Manish. Kshitij with wife, Truppti (NOT a spelling mistake, that’s the numerology conspiracy) announced their royal arrival at around 7:20, and we managed to settle down and leave from Kothrud at 7:30, as planned – 6:30 Pakistan Time. Till then we had received a threatening sms from Varsha, and we assured her that the bus would pick up her royal highness in a while. But the super blow came from Sagar and wife, Shubhangi, who kept us waiting at Bremen Circle (Pronounced Brahmin Circle by Kunal) for a good one hour. During this time we got a deep insight into the driver’s persona who kept abusing Sagar for delaying the trip and it looked that the driver was more eager than us for the trip. Around the same time he started off with stories of how lively our group was and how boring were the other trips he had been to. He gave an example of a trip he had been to some days back where the troop consisted of old people who did nothing on the trip but eat. And as everyone else applauded the humor in his statement, I quietly slid back the packet of potato chips which I had flicked from Amey’s bag. Finally we picked up Kunal who was waiting for the bus since early morning and had to have a bath because of the delay of the bus. Thank heavens for the delay. So finally we left Pune at 9 am – 6:30 Nairobi Time.
The trip started with basic chit-chatting about how each of us was doing in their professional life. This was where all of us got to bitch about their company and bosses and how much everyone’s job sucked more compared to the others. And just as we got out of town, we started feeling hungry from the excessive manual labour we had been through waiting for Sagar at Brahmin circle. So we decided to wait at a place and have a hearty breakfast. The food was pretty okay, except from the fact that my missal looked liked noodles and Kunal’s pav-bhaji tasted like mutton kheema. But we were so excited about the trip that we gave all this a blind eye and moved ahead with our journey. The monsoon made its presence felt by a sending a fresh downpour and the green lush environment started looking greener and more pleasant.
So then what was our next stop??? Yeah you guessed it right.. we stopped for lunch. I am sure that by this time the driver had realized that this troop was exactly the same as the old people he had driven before as all we did was eat. But I guess he kept quiet as he feared that if he expressed his opinion freely, Manish would lock himself in the bus along with the driver and give him a dose of “Khwaja Mera Khwaja” with peaks of “Tum” and “Ha ha ha” scattered in between. Anyway, while we waited for lunch people started off the photo shoot. Locations included the top of the tempo, a dried up fountain with Manish and me posing as if we were drowning. Then the guys walking together aiming for the Kaante pose, and the girls catwalking together trying to imitate what the guys did but ending up with snaps of clinging to each other and giggling their hearts out of their mouths.
The photo-session ended, thankfully, when rain crashed the party and all had to rest their asses in peace. However this was the time when Kshitij who had devoured more than a gallon (US unit :P) of beer, started explain his theory of hangovers removal. He claimed that the best way to get rid of a hangover was to drink beer, and this was supported by a graph, which is a steep drop in case you try to be sober, but which turns into a gradual curve if we have a beer. Cheers!!
In the meantime food was served, and this was when I went into a state of Nirvana. What happened for the next 30-45 minutes? I have no memories. All I remember is the beautifully sculpted leg piece of the chicken, as if the Gods had especially posted it from the heavens in my name. Life went slow-motion, the cries of the people slowly died out and I achieved a state of total tranquil. All I can recall now is the delicious taste of the food. Veggies, I forgive thy ignorance for it is why chicken is affordable to us. Non-Veggies, I guess I have total unison here!
After lunch the crowd went wild. We could now see the beauty of nature, as the spell of the chicken was broken as soon as the last drop of gravy was drained from the Handi. The clouds had settled on the ground and the fog was become denser and denser. Soon we set off in the direction of Malshej ghat which was now just 4-5Kms away. People were now asking the driver whether they could sit on the top of the bus as he drove through the ghats and to our surprise he obliged. As soon as he said yes, most of the public ran out and at one point when it looked like all of us would climb to the top, he asked some of us to stay back and balance the weight. So it was all the heavy-weights, Kunal, Nishikant, Amey, Manish, Rewa (!!!), Devi (Ignore this one), Sagar & Family on top of the bus. And the remaining feather-weights, Varsha, Kuldeep, Kshitij, Truppti and me trying to balance the half a ton which was on the top of the bus. The driver drove for a good 15-20 minutes before he settled on a nice spot and parked the bus there. Meanwhile Kshitij had changed to shorts and the discussion which went between him and Truppti (his wife) is as follows:Kshitij: Hey Truppti, wanna go out and have some fun in the rain???
Truppti: Sorry, I can’t. I have a sinus problem, Remember???
Before Truppti had even completed her statement, the doors of the bus burst open and Kshitij hands spread out, as though they were wings, ran out in the rain screaming “Yay, Yay!!!!!” as if the Yerawada Prison had broken open and the inmates serving life-sentences were on their own. By the time Truppti completed her statement, Kshitij had vanished into the fog and what was left behind was the displacement of fog cause by his vigorous hopping. The people on the top of the bus, held their breaths as they noticed this torpedo shoot out of the bus into the fog.
The driver seeing this entire drama, felt an enhanced sense of security as he too was miles apart from this wife and could enjoy the freedom with us all. He urged us to go dancing in the rain, while he blasted the CD player at full sound. The scene was a party with loud music, people dancing on top of the bus, people flying, with arms wide open, in the fog and one particular individual with his hands behind his head and his pelvic thrusts. Then one by one almost everyone came out from the bus and started dancing.
This was a feeling of a lifetime to be in the rain, dancing and with all our friends around us. After a good one hour of dancing we decided it was enough time spent at one spot and we got back into the bus. As chivalrous as we are, we decided that it would be good to let the girls change before they catch a cold. So we got all the girls into the bus and all the guys out of it, except the driver who was busy hunting for the track “Kombdi Palali” in his CD. We had to drag him out saying that we’ve had enough dance, we don’t need any more now. The next 25 minutes were the longest of my life, where 6 guys were trying to hide from the rain behind one umbrella. Though we were already wet we realized that dancing in the rain is a different thing as compared to standing in the rain waiting for girls to get ready. Everyone was shivering from the lack of physical movement, but I’m glad for neither of us was ready for thrusts under the umbrella.
Suddenly what struck us was the abrupt drop of PJ’s in the atmosphere. This could mean just two things, either all of us had gone deaf or Nishikant was missing. To our glad relief it was the latter case, but even this was turning out a cause of worry as time passed and there was still no trace of Nishi. In the meantime it was the year 2050 and the girls finally managed to get ready. We leaped inside the bus to protect ourselves from the rain and were greeted by the aroma of perfumes and cosmetics. The BLOODDDDDYYYY females were doing bloody make-up while the rest of us were freezing our drenched asses out in the rain. Anyway, we had a bigger problem at hand as Nishi was still missing. This was when the driver grabbed a jacket from the bus and announced, “This is a job for the protector of oppressed, the defender the weak and the knight in shining armour for Nishikant!”. He stormed out into the fog and now we were wondering whether we would have to go searching for him as well. Thankfully after some 5-10 minutes the driver stormed back into the bus declaring that he had managed to find Nishi who was found sitting under a tree, and while Nishi claimed that he had lost his way in the fog and wasn’t able to find his way back, the driver kept insisting that this was a matter of love and Nishi has been tortured and demented in love which lead to him sitting all alone in the fog under a tree. Whereas another dimension to the story came from Kunal who said that our love-struck hero was attending to an urgent nature’s call and the fog provided him with the perfect camouflage. The driver meantime had developed on the “hurt in love” story and started warning us all about the effects and side-effects of love. It took Kunal some really intimate discussion with the driver to cool him down and make him concentrate on the driving. We decided that this much adventure for the day was enough and we should be heading back home.
The journey back started off pretty quietly as most of us were very tired from the entire episode that happened before. Everyone was now drowsy and most were taking a good nap in their seats. For the next one hour all we could hear is the chattering of the driver and Kunal, who had taken up an immediate liking to each other. And in the only sound except the two chatting was the symphony of the rain splattering and the humming of the wipers. Manish claimed that tomorrow Kunal will have a new friend request on Orkut from the driver :) . At around 5 in the evening we stopped at a small village to grab a cup of tea. Here we had tea, bhajiyas and another photo session :D.
Soon we were back into the bus, the energy levels lifted and in mood for some more merriment. We started off with Kshitij taking a video of all the people present with a running commentary and then we switched to nursery rhymes from our childhood and soon the nostalgic mood took over. We sang advertisement, title songs of serials like Jai Hanuman, Mowgli, Potli Baba ki and every damn thing that could be sung or recited from our childhood. But then the driver lost his patience with our songs and asked us to sing something fresh. Then I have no clue what we sung .. but we sang in all ways possible, duets with guys singing the guy’s lines and girls singing the girl’s. Old songs, new songs, Amitabh bachchan songs, Govinda songs, Anil Kapoor songs, Kishore Kumar songs but it was “Ek chatur naar” sung mostly by Amey that mesmerized the driver. Maybe we were more concerned about the likes and dislikes of Kunal’s best friend, than our own. The driver by this time had found another friend in Kuldeep, who was sitting beside the driver now and had impressed him with troubleshooting of the bus’s hardware. Whenever the wiper of the bus stopped working Kuldeep used to hit something beneath the dashboard and the wiper would miraculously start working. This came to him naturally, as even in office whenever any hardware box fails; Kuldeep’s job is to hit the box in strategic locations till it starts working. And now it was my turn to do something crazy, considering that my quota of craziness was still unused. I started with the U S of A attitude, chanting “Yo, man” after every 500ms. And then every song sung by me was with an English accent. Nishikant, Amey and Manish further helped me mix the songs to our flavour. Amey, Manish and me were converting the song to English sub-titles, hence “toota –toota ek parinda” became “broken bird, broken bird” with Amey mixing it a bit as “bi-bi-bi-bird” and “Allah ke bande” translated to “God’s dudes”. Manish at one point of time replaced “Kajra re, Kajra re” as “Ointment, Ointment” till we told him that “Eye-liner, Eye-liner” would be a better choice. Nishi in the meantime was taking the names of all the people even remotely connected to the song and calling them on the dance floor, so when we were singing “Hum tum ek cubicle mein band ho, aur access card kho jaye”, Nishi was yelling – “Yo, yo, yo this is Dimple, the mother of Twinkle on the dance floor!!”. In this entire chaos we had no clue when half the people got down on the way and when we reached Tejas office. One thing we do recall is the faces of people on the road trying to peep into our bus, trying to get a hint of what exactly was taking place inside. That was our stop we got out there, made our way back home and caught a good night’s sleep.
This one day trip has given us more memories than most of our previous quests, as this time we spent more time inside the bus with each other than outside. Even more memorable it will be as Kunal and I are down with fever and cold. As I write this I have been taking breaks to wipe the fluid off my nose with my sleeves and now it’s time to wring the shirt as it has reached its saturation point. My head is heavy and aching once in a while, the coughs are reminding me that I forgot to mention cough, but this shall all vanish in a few days, hopefully. But what will be left behind is the array of Orkut Pics, sweet memories (check the spelling) and a sense of fulfillment that the trip, which most of us think would be our last, was such a block-buster success.
